So over the weekend, my wife brought me this book: Why Baba Is Not the 5th by Saitabao Ole Kanchory. It was an engaging read, and these are my takeaways:
- Baba as a politician was stingy and selfish
You can imagine a whole chief agent and his team working for a presidential candidate for free, without any allowance or budget, because Baba refused to financially support their critical operations. This is what Kanchory writes:
“The first sign things were not going to be so rosy was when we presented a small budget for the office of national chief agent for Baba’s consideration. Knowing Baba and his money are not easily parted, the budget was kept highly conservative.”
~Page 68
Now, even with that low budget, Baba still refused to pay. We read:
“No resistance was expected from Baba considering how low the budget was and the critical nature of our operations in the entire scheme of things. You can therefore imagine my shock and dismay WHEN BABA CASUALLY DISMISSED our financial plea, saying he saw no reason why my team needed any money.”
~Page 68
On Baba’s selfishness, this is what Kanchory has to say:
“The paradox and parody of the matter is that Baba is both the solution and the problem facing Kenya. The solution because only he has the political muscle to challenge government excesses, and the PROBLEM since he is neither taking Kenyans to the promised land NOR ALLOWING SOMEONE ELSE to do it.”
~Page 45
Going by the above statement, I am persuaded that if Baba were alive next year, he would still vie for the presidency and by his own mistakes lose.
- Baba bungled big time his presidential win in 2022
This was due to being very disorganised, trusting the wrong people (Junet & co.), and being politically naive.
As they say, a disorganised leader often produces a disorganised inner circle and followers. On Baba’s disorganisation, this is what Kanchory writes:
“While Baba is a mobiliser of practically no parallel, he has NEVER — EVEN at his BEST — been KNOWN for his ORGANISATIONAL capabilities.”
~Page 44
It is this lack of organisational capability that led his trusted aides, such as Junet and Makau to mirror that disorder and create a disorganised command centre that did absolutely nothing to safeguard Baba’s votes or secure a win.
Kanchory writes:
“…our command centre produced absolutely nothing. It was as though it never existed. In the end, it was truly much ado about nothing. The one thing I shall always remember about that God-forsaken place was the pervading sense of confusion.”
~Page 74
“The key players in this theatre of the absurd were Muhoho Kenyatta, Junet Mohammed, Joe Mucheru, and Makau Mutua — in that order.”
~Page 75
On Baba’s political naivety, this is what Kanchory writes:
“The primary reason Raila Odinga boycotted the 2017 repeat election was that they could not TRUST the Wafula Chebukati-led IEBC to run a free and fair election. It therefore becomes bizarrely puzzling HOW, just five years later, Mr Odinga would blindly lead Kenyans down the same path.”
~Page 39
“It is even more bewildering why this many-times beaten and highly experienced politician would throw all caution to the wind and disregard clear tell-tale signs pointing to a repeat of the 2017 scenario, or worse.”
~Page 39
“…when it comes to power, he (Raila) is strangely naive.”
~Page 40
As I was reading this book, I began to wonder whether Raila was truly interested in becoming president, and whether he and his aides were genuinely serious about winning the 2022 elections?