BY SALIM ODENY (On Facebook)

This is for my friend and ODM Secretary General Hon. Edwin Sifuna whom I always fondly refer to as ‘Omwami’ meaning chief or king in Luhya.

I am always fairly long. I know you are smiling because you know my stature. But I have said long, not tall. So maybe horizontally because vertically I am definitely down to earth. But I mean in writings and as such I seek your indulgence to bear with me on the length of this writing.

I have watched your actions and utterances for a while now. I have interacted with you at close range in my engagements with ODM party. Lately, you are shocking me and I owe it to you to address you on the same.

As my learned senior, you are aware of the fundamental principle in criminal law going as ‘actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’ which means that an act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty. I have always excused your acts assuming that your mind is innocent and your intentions pure. But again, the actions are the mirror by which we can see the mind.

My community just like yours and indeed any other in Kenya and beyond, is rich in culture which is replete with sayings, proverbs, traditions and customs. I will pick a few to address you.

1. DHI GI JI – GO WITH THE PEOPLE

It is perfectly within your democratic right to hold an opinion and communicate the same. You also enjoy political rights which include the right to support or oppose anyone eyeing any political seat, and that includes H.E Dr. William Samoei Ruto and indeed anyone else. But you are not an ordinary Kenyan bwana Sifuna. You are SG of a big party. You speak for people. You’ve openly opposed William Ruto (which is your right) while the people you lead are praising him. That’s why I don’t write this to my other friend Hon. Babu Owino whose only loyalty may be with the people of Embakasi East and who retain the right to re-elect him as their MP or even elect him to another post, within or without ODM. For you, you lead every ODM member from Ng’ut Mbaka K’Owenga to Wuoth Ogik, from Sio Port to Watamu, from Todonyang’ to Office Ng’eny and indeed all over Kenya.

Don’t you think it’s time you retreated to listen to your people and take stock? You are knowledgeable but kindly care about the people you lead and their choices/preferences. People will not care how much you know until they know how much you care.

You represent the collective conscience of ODM. Kindly communicate it faithfully even if you don’t like or agree with it. After all, nobody requires you to like or agree with the grand position of ODM members, you simply need to abide by it if your position as a leader is to remain tenable. You can hate Ruto all you want but keep that to yourself or you can join us in the trenches here where your words and actions are not not subject to scrutiny by anyone, but the law.

Someone watching you will quickly conclude that you and Justin Beda Muturi are drinking from the same pot and have the same tutor. Disabuse that notion.

I also know that there are people cheering you on especially after the resounding backing you got from H.E Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o and Hon. Osotsi, but when the day of reckoning comes, you won’t see them. They may only be urging you to become mad as they that when the gods want to destroy you, they first make you mad. I hope you remember Hon. Magerer?

2. WENDO MINU – YOUR MOTHER’S VISITOR

My community is widely known for the practice of widow inheritance. In our community, you can’t choose the inheritor for your mother. In fact, your opinions are not even welcomed, let alone sought.

When you go for supper at your mother’s house (especially if you still don’t have a house of your own, like in your case in the context of political party), then you just serve your dinner and leave to go and sleep. It is none of your business and indeed out of your place and province to ask your mother about the visitor you’ve found in her house and at what time the visitor will be leaving. That’s your mother’s visitor. It doesn’t matter whether you have a personal issue with the visitor or he insulted you at chang’aa den – he is in your mother’s house. And whoever sleeps in your mother’s house is your father, your hatred towards him notwithstanding. President William Ruto is a visitor of your mother (ODM). Your opinion against him doesn’t matter.

3. JATIJWA – OUR SERVANT

I have heard you severally insinuating that you are only answerable to H.E the Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga whom you are diligently serving. You refer to him as “my party leader”, “my mentor”, “my boss” etc. That’s fine but kindly be a bit broad on the same. A servant at a home is not only a servant of the employer but of every member of the family even if he doesn’t call them boss. That’s how your wife and children consider your maid, shamba boy, or indeed any other servant in your house bwana senator.

Omwami, many servants have lost their jobs, not because they offended the real boss and sometimes, against the wish of the boss. It is because of the mentality that they only have one boss and only that boss will they be loyal to that cost them their jobs.

When the children of your boss want to discuss you as a servant, they don’t tell their father (baba) that “this your servant” instead they say “this our servant”. Even the Grade 1 guy in that house will gossip about you with his friends that “our new driver is very polite and smart”. Some will even dare say “today, MY DRIVER came late to pick me from school.”

Learn this omwami. You are not only serving Raila, but also his family (biological and political). Family ties are strong and can ruin you. King Herode never wished John the baptist dead but his bedmate did and her wishes carried the day. A junior family member may one day ask for your head in a platter.

4. MOGIK – FINALLY

Don’t be rigid. You remember Shariff Nassir’s famous words of ‘bendera hufuata upepo’ and ‘siasa ni tanga, si nanga’? In my community they say that ‘siasa jaringo ngalma, range maber’ which means politics is dynamic, watch it keenly. A dog that has two homes had no benefit to the owner. They also say that.

With tremendous respect and no love lost, I submit, my senior.

Thank you omwami and my friend. Long live the SG of the largest political party South of Sahara and North of River Limpopo.