Naively, this type will court controversy and break every rule in the book, in the comfort that the government is on their side and nothing can happen to them.
The useful idiot often says the most stupid things, either under instructions or from own initiative. This type actually believes their own lies and foolishness. As defenders of the regime, their noise is the first sign of their hollow status as rank outsiders in government. Real power wielders hardly ever speak.
Thankfully, most useful idiots in politics finally fade out and die slow, lonely deaths, having been discarded by their users and having lost the trust of all political formations.
To be a useful idiot in politics is to surrender your mental faculties for use in advancing the interests of more powerful people. In African folklore, this is what the Luhya would call the Omunyambi, the palace sycophant who offers to take responsibility when the king lets out smelly gas.
Take the case of Homa Bay Town MP Opondo Kaluma. Before the broad-based regime came about, the third-term legislator was more known in national circles for his proposed Family Protection Bill, interpreted more as an attempted affront on gender minorities. No one knows what happened to that endeavour.
Ever since he took up the job of President Ruto’s foremost defender in Luo Nyanza, he’s playing the sort of politics that sets entire nations aflame. To make it worse, Kaluma’s political history confirms that he neither has the intellectual capacity nor the inter-ethnic knowledge to see the bigger picture national cohesion.
Kudni is the Luo word for a virus, a worm or an insect. In the trending video of Kaluma that emerged ahead of the Linda Mwananchi tour of Homa Bay last Sunday, the legislator can be heard asking the youths he is addressing to deal with the “worms” from other political persuasions who have arrived in the town, ready for the opposition rally.
He proceeds to demand that the gang raids hotels in the town to flush out these “worms” and deal with them, while reiterating that he has already provided enough fuel for transportation in facilitating the attacks.
The reference to worms and the flushing out of opponents from dwellings are quite telling. But still, you can tell that Kaluma is unable to grasp the gravity of his utterances or indeed, the impact that his approach will ultimately have in Ruto’s desire for votes from the lakeside region.
Predictably, following the viral video, the Sunday tour by the Linda Mwananchi brigade turned out to be a chaotic and destructive day, where lives were lost, injuries were sustained and property worth millions of shillings was destroyed.
Certain things strike me as odd. The first is that the former Raila Odinga was the regional kingpin of the Luo community for at least three decades. In that entire period, there was no attempt to cage the community to stop it hearing diverse political messages.
Neither did the likes of Kaluma go out of their way to try and forcefully cement Raila’s vote the way they do for Ruto. Well, money could be a hugely motivating factor, but it still makes no sense to deploy such murderous enthusiasm to prove a Tutam point.
The second thing I find rather strange is the belief in regime circles that pro-government elements can actually get away with murder, and that action is only forthcoming towards opposition figures.
If Kaluma’s dangerous utterances had emanated from an opposition-leaning figure, Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen and his PS Raymond Omollo (who, incidentally, hails from the same Homa Bay county), alongside senior national security folks, would have been fast with a presser on the steps of Harambee House. They would have vowed to unleash the weight of the state on the offender.
The precedent set by Kaluma lays the groundwork for every other politician to establish “protection units” of their own, to overcome the challenge of being stoned helplessly on tour.
Additionally, the Homa Bay chaos now breeds the possibility that Linda Mwananchi supporters elsewhere in the country will be looking out for the ODM caravans whenever they appear, for a reciprocal welcome.
The economic angle of it all is even more baffling. I have seen clips from residents of areas visited by the Linda Mwananchi brigade across the country, celebrating the economic boom caused by the rallies.
Businesses providing services such as accommodation, eateries, the transport sector and branding, have celebrated making a kill from these carnivals brought to their neighbourhoods.
Yet in the case of Homa Bay, Kaluma andHoma Bay Governor Gladys Wanga not only caused the closure of businesses on Sunday, but byallegedly asking thugs to attack hotels, the MP created an unprecedented spectacle of disruptions and dangers to hoteliers in his own constituency.
I find President Ruto’s silence on the Homa Bay chaos interesting. Before and after the Sunday events, Kaluma had liberally used the head of state’s name to advance his madness.
On social media, where he is an obsessive commentator, he repeatedly made it aware that his acts of impunity were for the benefit of the President. But it reminded me of the infamous Mungiki sect in Central a while back.
When it was convenient, the destructive sect was used to assert political influence. But when Kikuyu masses had had enough of the sect’s excesses, the government was forced to crack hard on it, with a trail of disappearances and deaths targeting its leaders and key actors.
Kaluma and Wanga both position themselves as frontline salesmen of the Ruto agenda. However, their desire to shut out Homa Bay from seduction by other political actors reveals the weak hold they have on the grassroots.
But by perpetrating such violence and destruction on the lakeside town, they will probably succeed more in alienating well-meaning residents of the county from Ruto, than winning him hearts. Because, make no mistake, no onewitnesses communal violence and still wants to be associated with the “owners”.
There is of course also the question of sustainability. It is easy to mobilise thugs because “Sifuna is coming to destroy our broad-based government” and have them disrupt a specific rally. But the overriding question then becomes what productive undertakings the goons can engage in for the rest of the year when there is no Sifuna in town.
This question is even more compelling when the goons in question have already been given free will to raid business premises and have grown the appetite for cheap loot.And clearly, Kaluma has a rabid, obsessive fear of both Sifuna and Embakasi East MP Babu Owino.
But if Kaluma and Wanga are the sort of people the President is relying on to secure the votes in Luo Nyanza, the opposition should be very happy.
Because if the plan is to cage a community and shield it away from other political opinions, or to beat people into submitting to a certain viewpoint, then the chains will be broken, and the people will find freedom. Any agenda that requires force for its sustenance is dead on arrival.
