Nyando-born controversial author Miguna Miguna has declared he will contest the 2017 Nairobi gubernatorial seat and it is no big news because he will lose. He is a fringe candidate running to save his little self from his bloated self.
Miguna will lose because his political future is behind him, figuratively, and nothing can happen to reclaim it. He lost it the moment he bolted out of ODM’s high command and went unleashing terror on his former boss Raila Odinga.
In between, he endorsed Uhuru and Ruto at a time the two were suspects of mass crimes.
That alone torpedoes any claim by Miguna that he stands for integrity. Integrity has subtexts; like moral probity and personal judgement. Even more, when he was furiously marketing his scandalous book, Peeling Back the Mask, Miguna turned to Jeff Koinange, a controversial TV personality who had been sacked from CNN for sexual indiscretions, or so legend has it.
Thereafter, he was briefly retained by Jubilee to give Uhuru’s 2013 fraudulent win a veneer of respectability. During this whole time, his attacks on Raila Odinga went beyond accepted confines of political takedowns. He went personal; and at his lowest descended on Raila’s children.
Like with all Raila bashing lightweights in the Kenyan political scene; he attained stratospheric notoriety. A particular section of the press loved him, cheered him on and allowed him to operate on a no-accountability zone. He still wallows up there.
Raila Odinga may have forgiven Miguna, as that is his nature; but Raila supporters, and followers, whom Miguna would have banked on for the coming election, still look at Miguna as an irrelevant irritant who showed no political courtesy when it was needed most.
Miguna is a thankless human being. Human nature values trust and loyalty. Miguna, on the other hand, can neither be trusted nor is he loyal (to anyone). He is abrasive. He is loud and most sanctimoniously, he is given to fallacious imaginations.
Miguna only attends one show – Jeff Koinange Live – and the pattern of his appearance even on that show often coincides with a massive Jubilee scandal that needs a media cover-up or distraction. Since 2013, Miguna has offered the best sideshows. He often makes wild allegations without a shred of evidence. His diatribes on other political leaders – particularly Raila Odinga, and lately DP William Ruto, border on vendetta.
The seat he wants to occupy, governor of Nairobi, needs a steady hand. He is not. Miguna is unpredictable. Worse, he has the temperament of a fool. If Governor Kidero slapped Rachel Shebesh, Miguna would have shot her dead in the same circumstances.
Miguna’s contribution to Kenya’s democratisation started late and ended abruptly, under a cloud of self-entitlement and personal ego aggrandizement. When he failed to appreciate the compromises and tradeoffs that pro-reform leaders like Raila Odinga had to make to steady the ship in a tumultuous grand coalition arrangement, Miguna showed lack of political grit that would have propelled him to the next level if he nursed personal ambitions beyond being a court jester.
Miguna is not courageous. He is foolhardy. He has this Trumpian mentality (best Kenyan version of Donald Trump) that he, alone, can do it. Methinks he is a psycho. He overestimates himself in most political equations; and has put a larger than life image of himself as being consequential to the grander scheme of things. Of course he isn’t.
On management, Miguna has no history on that front, yet part of the crisis of governance in Nairobi is how to manage the limited resources of the city.
The last time Miguna ever made a human resource decision is when he fired his househelp. The poor woman had accused him of attempted rape.
His often repeated assertion that he can fight graft is purely academic. Neither is he scandal free. His two books are believed to have been bankrolled by then National Security Intelligence Service (now NIS) so is his home in Karen.
Nothing much is known of how he operated while he served as the Coalition Affairs Advisor to the Prime Minister. He lists no one in his two books. No one knows who else he worked with, how he related with such people as colleagues and what his office looked like.
Miguna is uniquely unqualified to be governor of Nairobi. Bad at teamwork, worse at delegation and worst at interpersonal relationships. It will take zombies and robots to work under ‘H.E Miguna Miguna’.
As a retrograde he may be tenacious, and place his name on the ballot, thanks to gigantic ego, but soon this political novice will realize time doesn’t tame everything.
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