We elected Sonko by mistake

During a recent twight pitting #KOT and a neighbouring country, Kenyans were silenced when they an opponent made a remark about our elected leaders. But I will not quote them here now.

I’m not sure if this is among our peculiar habits, but I also don’t understand why Kenyans never seem to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity – yeah, that’s right. We are known for often making wrong rushed decisions, driven by emotions and financial hand-outs, not by any rational thinking, with no regard to future implications of our poor decisions, no wonder we are now reminding ourselves that choices have consequences.

Some of our elected leaders have no demonstrated serious lack of leadership skills and the electorate is thus forced to bear with sideshows, misrepresentation, greed and all manner of inconceivable acts from the people who are meant to speak on our behalf.

Politics in Kenya is under the control of the “haves” whose primary aim of seeking political office is usually to protect their dubiously acquired wealth, grab more and keep the “have nots” a safe distance away. A rich man who has never slept hungry can never identify with the plight of a poor man. And when the rich man ascends to political office, he creates and maintains a system where the poor voter remains poor, at least until the next election.

Mike Gideon Mbuvi “Sonko” first came to the limelight in the 2nd half of 2010 when he declared interest in the Makadara by-election following a successful petition by pugilist “Weka tyre” against the then Member of Parliament Dick Wathika. “Sonko” got Martha Karua’s flower party ticket to contest in the by-election. He campaigned on the platform of youth and dished out money left-right-centre to Eastlands’ unemployed youth and businesswomen. His pimped Matatus, notorious for flouting all traffic rules were soon giving free rides to commuters along Jogoo Road, as he sought to endear himself to voters. In September 2010, the unthinkable happened – Sonko was declared the MP for Makadara.

Within a short time, Sonko started attracting attention to himself for all the wrong reasons. He did anything and everything to remain in the news, from leading several street demonstrations, ganging up with hawkers and Matatu touts to fight against police and City Council Askaris, punching walls with bare-knuckles, scaling walls, breaking tyre clamps to free his illegally parked vehicle and other despicable acts. Sonko would appear in public functions colourfully clad, complete with yellow hair, studs in each earlobe, chains around his neck and huge golden rings on each finer. His wallet also remained open to those around him. Whenever there was trouble in Nairobi, Sonko was the common denominator and Makadara voters (and Eastlanders as a whole) became subjects of ridicule due to the poor show of their youthful member of parliament. People got worried that Sonko had not reached maturity fully, or that he might have skipped a crucial stage of his life as a kid.

Meanwhile, upon realizing their mistake, many Makadara people wished for Sonko’s term to end quickly, in any case the country was gearing for a general election in March 2013 but the bad joke was then carried too far when Sonko declared interest in the Nairobi Senate seat under the new constitution. Many hoped that the Senate would be composed of intellectual minds, men and women of integrity and high moral standing. Voters in each of the nation’s 47 counties had an opportunity to directly elect their representatives to the Senate, also called the Upper House. But in a bizarre twist of fate, Nairobians wanted leaders with peculiar attribute!

To start with, the political parties treated us to shambolic primaries where the most unsuitable candidates “won” and got their names on the ballot paper. Through their not-so-democratic ways, CORD presented Bishop Margaret Wanjiru, hoping to woo women voters to capture the seat and become the first Senator of the County of Nairobi, while Jubilee had Sonko as their candidate for the seat, banking on the youth factor. Between the two candidates, I’m not afraid to say that Bishop Wanjiru would have been the safer option for the city, but a number of factors conspired against her The Kikuyus reasoned that voting for Wanjiru would give CORD a majority in the senate, so all their votes went to Sonko as the Jubilee flag bearer. The rest is history as we all know.

The dust has hardly settled since the election and Sonko is already grabbing headlines in his characteristic fashion. In September, he was involved in an ugly altercation with Kiss 100’s Carol Mutoko live on air, hurling several unprintable words against the presenter. I may not be privy to what Kenyans have against Carol Mutoko but I found it totally strange though, that some online Kenyans chose to stand with Sonko, leaving the radio girl with egg all over her face. Such is our poor sense of judgment as Kenyans! The misunderstanding with Nairobi Woman Representative Rachel Shebesh provided Sonko with another chance to exhibit his arrogance. Rumours about the two being an item had been circulating for a while despite their spirited denials and protestations. They wanted the world to believe that they were simply hardworking servants of the people of Nairobi County. They occasionally carried away some unfinished work to the comforts and privacy of 5-star hotels in Mombasa and Nairobi. However, Sonko took stupidity to another level by recording himself as he committed adultery with a married woman. But Rachel must have been equally daft or simply desperate to lower the flag for Sonko. Who was the targeted audience for the pictures and videos? And now we know on whose side Sonko was when he offered to mediate between Kidero and Shebesh after the "Gubernatorial" slap!

Sonko has shown no respect to women, starting from his wife who he has cheated on, his daughters who must be too traumatized by what their father does in public, Carol Mutoko whom he insulted badly on air, Shebesh whom he is alleged to have physically assaulted before releasing damaging photos of the two of them in compromising positions.

The mainstream media created Sonko, the mainstream media has emboldened Sonko and now he has become the master of impunity. He is said to be very generous when dealing with journalists, and that is a dangerous trend. I’m not so sure about what the constitution says about removal of such people from office but Jubilee must crack the whip on delinquent members like Sonko. Remember this time that any embarrassment caused by him is not confined to Eastlanders only but to all Nairobians and sadly, to the President with whom they belong to the same ruling coalition.

As voters, we carry the biggest part of the blame for being so gullible and electing the likes of Sonko to public office. In our future elections, can we redeem ourselves? Can we look beyond ethnicity, beyond party lines and vote only for men and women with unquestionable character?