Jubilee is a strange party. It is both in government and in opposition. Covering all bases.
Before he was fumigated and kicked aside, the former Jubilee Leader of the Majority in the Senate no longer sounded as the government’s prefect in that chamber.
He kept up a constant rat-a-tat on the government’s failures. One time he was attacking the “militarisation” of the Nairobi County administration.
On another day, he would be lamenting that the same government has abandoned flood victims in Elgeyo-Marakwet County.
He had also taken to posting on Twitter Biblical verses dripping with sweet irony – and bitterness. The other day he was commenting on the Roman Emperor Nero, who fiddled when Rome burned. His passion for Bible verses online has only intensified with his ejection.
Then there is the off-and-on vice-chairman of Jubilee. He wines and dines with the topmost honchos of the nominal Opposition, who in the dizzying turn of fortunes witnessed these days, happen to be frequent and honoured guests at State House.
In between, the vice-chairman lobs savage one-liners at his own party’s deputy leader, who he calls a thief.
The vice-chairman has been on record informing the country that a gnu – Government of National Unity – is going to be formed incorporating his converted friends from the Opposition.
Initially dismissed as an unserious character in Jubilee’s amorphous crew, the media now hang onto his political predictions as one would do an oracle.
An outlier in this beautiful mix is the flashy Jubilee Governor of Nairobi. The fellow had raised a new bar. He had wanted to go to court to overturn the appointment of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services.
He complained that he never read the handover papers he was made to sign at State House.
But – wow – wait for this! He then threatened to file proceedings at the International Criminal Court against a couple of top bureaucrats at the Office of the President. This would have been a first! Surely the drama couldn’t get better than this.
Predictably, the comedy in Jubilee found its way into the office of the Registrar of Political Parties, who threw the ball back to the court of the party secretary-general.
The secretary-general has been busy fending off his many opponents. A self-abducting MP who represents the home constituency of the party leader derides the secretary-general as the ODM Special Envoy in Jubilee.
After the appointment with the registrar, the sibling show moved on to the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal.
I expected the next destination to be the courts, but one of the parties mysteriously withdrew their case. The Judiciary, which is full of eager beavers, would have relished this chance to get involved.
If I was to arbitrate, I would try and mimic something Solomonic. Just split the party into two. One side takes the name of Jubilee-TNA; the other Jubilee-URP. Ah, there’s the tricky question of identity.
I think the emblem of a chicken would look good for Jubilee-URP, for rather obvious reasons.
The rags-to-riches struggle to make it in life started somewhere with that domestic bird – or so a certain narrative has it.
Now, with Jubilee-TNA, let’s see. Why not a flywhisk? It carries certain connotations culturally, something to do with special status and inheritance. Or is it birthright?
Kanu, which these days is in perfect harmony with the would-be Jubilee-TNA, may wish to replace its cockerel symbol with an ivory baton, or ‘rungu’.
This would bring the ‘Mama na Baba’ party in sync with the symbolism of the flywhisk.
While the Jubilee secretary-general sits comfortably at the party’s Pangani headquarters in Nairobi and has refused to budge, for Jubilee-URP it looks like it’s time for Plan B.
They could opt to set up shop inside the serene atmosphere of Harambee Annex, where not much seems to be going on nowadays with even the Covid-19 buzz all happening across the street at Harambee House.
If ever the denizens of the two buildings felt like calling a truce, they could simply take a stroll together and have lunch at the well-appointed Chinese restaurant at the nearby Kenyatta International Convention Centre. Is it still open, by the way?
If they can’t co-exist, fine. But something has got to give. Political parties in Kenya are mere adornments, for electoral convenience.
They are worn and discarded at the slightest whim. When push comes to shove, the real muscle is with Harambee House.
If you want to know the bowels of the ‘Deep State’, touch there. There they don’t do poetic Biblical quotes or speak in tongues. They act.