Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi must have been a tough matatu conductor back in the 1990s.
Conductors need brashness, ready insults and a particular kind of bravery to deal with difficult passengers.
Going by Sudi’s utterances in the past week and even earlier, he has these qualities in plenty.
On Friday, as he brushed aside Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i’s explanation of the controversy surrounding Turkish businessman Harun Aydin before MPs in Mombasa, he finished with a phrase considered obscene by many.
“Msizungushe Wakenya kila siku na ujinga. Unachukua nafasi ya muda mrefu una explain matope (Don’t take Kenyans in circles daily with nonsense. You take too much time to explain tripe),” he said in a “selfie” video.
Whatever he said almost sounded like it was coming from the mouth of a typical 1990s matatu conductor.
Those were the days of modified pick-up matatus aka seven-a-side, in which Sudi worked.
In the selfie rant, he demands to know if the transfer of Mr Aydin, who flew to Turkey on Monday following his arrest last weekend, was done diplomatically.
Ruto’s fanatical defender
In Dr Matiang’i’s view, Aydin – who was to fly with Deputy President William Ruto from Nairobi to Uganda on August 2 – was transferred in a mutual agreement between Nairobi and Ankara.
The DP was stopped from flying to Uganda.
“We were in constant communication with the security on that side. We handed over their citizen as we agreed so they can process him. There would never have been need to apologise (to Turkey),” he told a committee chaired by Limuru MP Peter Mwathi.
However, the Kapseret MP sees things differently.
“This story is as simple as this: when you denied Dr Ruto a chance to go to Uganda, things got hot on your side. You realised your mistake and looked for a diversion,” he said.
“Badala mnyamaze tu, mnyamazie chini ya maji ili hiyo maneno iende hivyo, ishajulikana upumbavu wote ni wenu, sasa umerudi tena unakuja unasema ati una revoke kibali chake,” he said, to mean that the government should have remained silent and after revoking Mr Aydin’s work permit.
For a man facing trial over remarks he is said to have made about President Uhuru Kenyatta’s family last year, a sharp tongue is his stock-in-trade as he defends Dr Ruto at every available opportunity.
The case was heard at a Nakuru court on Friday. Sudi is among Dr Ruto’s fanatical defenders.
Matatu conductor
No message could have captured it more succinctly than his remarks on the Turk.
“If they arrest him, let them arrest me too. If he is a terrorist, I am a terrorist too,” he said.
In his days as a pupil at Olympic Primary School, Sudi must have heard the Biblical story of Ruth, she of the “my people shall be your people” declaration.
Aydin might have become “his person” as much as Dr Ruto’s because Sudi says he has visited the Turk a number of times in his country and travelled with him also.
The 40-year-old sold fruits and charcoal in his “hustling” days before joining the matatu industry, where he used to earn Sh800 a month, he says.
Kapseret was created just before the 2013 General Election and Sudi has been its MP since.
He has on countless occasions predicted the fall of the ruling party Jubilee.
If the Jubilee government were a matatu, it would be safe to say the driver and conductor are not on talking terms.
Sudi would be that passenger who always sides with the conductor. BY DAILY NATION