OWALO THE POLITICAL WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION
By Jackson Omondi
The Jubilee regime has been cornered, a desperate President was reduced to dogwhistle maneuvers in vernacular radio stations, revered family members were pictured reaching out to the second President of Kenya for political counsel. I mean CORD appeared to be in total control of the political news cycles. And then Owalo showed up!

Penning a piece alleging RAO’ s installation of Rosemary in the Kibra parliamentary contest, Owalo singlehandedly, aided Jubilee by resurrecting a pet political attack on the Enigma. “Raila must choose between winning Kibra or the presidency,” he deadpanned.

Thanks to Owalo, the conversation changed in a dime and on cue, even CORD bloggers descended on Raila with grotesque political salvos! You don’t need a clairvoyant to know that Jubilee has always used Kibra as a political cudgle that they have repeatedly pounded Raila with and in turn gained traction as a political talking point.

Jubilee would love to frame the 2017 contest as a battle of Kibra, conveniently forgetting that Langata for Raila was a springboard to the national theatre because his constituency was Kenya! One of the few MPs who used his seat to fight for the entire nation.

But Owalo has temporarily turned the Kibra contest into a microcosm of the entire 2017 presidential contest! This cannot be allowed to fly.

Granted, Owalo has a right to run for any political office of his choice and nobody is stopping him from doing just that. But to bemoan Rosemary’ s entry into the race by framing it as a national contest is flat out disingenuous. Owalo is attempting to stiff-arm her on grounds of being the daughter and for that alone, he is convinced that if she wasn’t the PM’s daughter, she won’t stand a chance. Fine. Conversely, who was Owalo before Raila plucked him from obscurity to head of CORD presidential secretariat? Is it also fair to say that Owalo is also leveraging on his proximity to RAO or the little fame he acquired in the 2013 polls as head of the secretariat?

This political bedwetting has to stop. We have a national election to win and these little stunts are creating unnecessary schisms.

The last time I checked, we have a secret ballot system and all aspirants, including the incumbent Mr Ken Okoth, a man whose record speaks for itself, will have a chance to grace the ballot papers. This remains true regardless of how ODM conducts it’s nominations and who ends up with the nomination certificate. Nobody will be holding a gun to your head with instructions on whom to vote for. It’s your choice.

If in doubt, just take a look at the Abagusii. The abagusii have a penchant for bucking imposed candidates without making a farce about it. In the end, we have a template. Let’s not take our eyes off the ball.