Enter the whiffler!

“Politicians bore me personally; they know how to manipulate the news…I don’t believe anything any politician tells me.”- a media consultant (a former BBC journalist) now based in Tanzania

Enter the most recent king of whiffle politics, Kigumo's MP Jamleck Kamau. He's one chameleon (forgive the cliche). Really! I don’t mean to be slanderous, so let me start with what I can prove.

For the record, I will not call him an inconsequential doofus. Neither will I call him a moral no-show. He is just a politician suddenly thrust in the limelight by virtue of being “a roadblock” in what Kenya’s scribes have baptised as an 'impending life-changing moment in Kenya'.

Mr Kamau is a vice chairman of the Party of National Unity and a commissioner in the Parliamentary Service Commission. A fortnight ago, he was all over Parliament making noise that the House Business Committee –that powerful team that decides what’s debated in Parliament—had kicked out his Bill.

The crux of the Bill was to amend the law, have the Reference Group brought in to iron out the contentious issues on the proposed Constitution and then send the document for ratification in the referendum.

So, he made his noise about how he and his colleagues Peter Mwathi (Limuru MP), George Nyamweya (nominated MP) and Silas Ruteere (Imenti North MP) had identified issues in the document that were a gateway to a non-divisive referendum

He called it a “bridge” to a new Kenya. That weekend, he held a massive ‘No’ rally at his place and said how the document was really bad and deserved to be kiboshed at the referendum.

A weekend later, he was in the ‘Yes’ rally, still at his place, saying how he had changed sides, how ‘trust’ is important in politics and the whole baloney.

He has gone ahead and withdrawn his Bill from Parliament even before the First Reading and says he has done so after speaking to President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Was he just jazzed or simply wowed, just by speaking to these fellows? I guess so.

But lest Mr Kamau forgets, I’d remind him what P.J. O’Rourke said in his book ‘Parliament of Whores’, that: “A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.” Over to you Mr Kamau, let’s see how that ‘trust’ in government makes Kenya a new one. You sound so naïve sir! Seriously! Or that’s your brand of politics? Maybe. If it is, I don’t blame you. Just blame yourself.


And that is the politics. If you thought all these fellows had your interest at heart, think again. It is just politics.

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