Strange times as Tinga boards wheelbarrow, but how far will ride go?

A large wheelbarrow at the United Democratic Alliance Centre in Nairobi. [Wilberforce Okwiri,Standard]

Logically, it would have been the wheelbarrow boarding the tractor and not the other way around. But politics is hardly ever logical. It is mostly transactional and with the right price, even tingas can be made to fit atop wheelbarrows.

In this instance, the price seems to have been some shares in Kenya Kwanza Limited and, possibly, an air-conditioned office in Addis Ababa. But haters say the price was the lives of brave Gen Zs and Millennials killed while championing good governance.

Well, Tinga, the opposition veteran Raila Odinga, insists he has not boarded the Kenya Kwanza vessel. In the wake of the poaching of some of his most prized assets, Tinga fired a letter to assert neither his Chungwa party nor the Azimio coalition had entered into a coalition with President William Ruto’s UDA.

But actions have been known to hold more weight than words. Few have bought the idea that Tinga was unaware his four lieutenants - his deputies Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya, Chungwa’s chair John Mbadi and National Assembly Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi–were crossing over into Kenya’s Canaan, the land of flying tiny benderas on fuel guzzlers.

Tinga’s best wishes to them and his “trust that they will contribute positively to national development”, and the notes of thanks from the soon-to-be Bwana Waziris, further cemented the assertion that Tinga and Hustler had forged a new handshake. He’d repeated the timeless creed, “Nikiitwa nitaitika”, a hint that anyone who paid attention would never have missed.

Understandably, Raila would want to deny such happenings given how funny it would be explaining how a tractor had fit into a wheelbarrow. But it shouldn’t be a surprise, given it had previously squeezed inside the bowels of Kanu’s cockerel and the Jubilee’s dove. In 2002, Tinga found shelter under the Narc umbrella.

For the right price, words can be swallowed. Ali Kiba’s number one fan, Joho, who also identifies himself as 001, had previously vowed never to accept a wheelbarrow as a gift. He steered them enough as a child. He had no kind words for Hustler, who also goes by the name Zakayo, a man he accused of countless ills.

Joho seemed genuine when he said those words. What use would a wheelbarrow be to him who owns countless high-end cars? 

As the Swahili say, wazee hukumbuka. Joho has been dying to experience the good, not-so-old days, when he enjoyed, not wheelbarrow rides, but the trappings of power. He has been in political Siberia for less than two years, an unnerving experience, given his enthusiastic acceptance of his nomination to the Mining and Blue Economy Ministry.

Not everyone seems too enthusiastic. Unlike his colleagues, Oparanya has not shared their latest achievements on social media. Rumours za kinyozi have it he doesn’t fancy heading the Cooperatives docket, having preferred the nation’s purse.

Since Hustler agreed to share his loaf, many expected that the former Kakamega governor would be picked to head the Treasury. But Zakayo would plunge him into the docket that deals with the Hustler Fund, a project that has made little sense to the polygamous Mulembe man.

In all fairness, Oparanya isn’t much of a social media poster with most of his appearances being courtesy of his latest catch, who seems to hold the secret to making oldies look younger.

Because he isn’t a sharer, it is easy to pick out his past tweets, which include a promise to”retire and go home and become a farmer” if the only option was to join Hustler’s government.

Good fortune, if being waziri can be termed as such, also has an anosmic effect. When the president named his first Cabinet in 2022, Mbadi’s sense of smell was particularly heightened. Out of the waziris Hustler had picked, Mbadi smelled skunks. It had everything to do with the fishy business most of them had been accused of engaging in.

Recently, Mbadi seems to have lost all sense of smell. He no longer sees his future colleagues as skunks. Never mind most of them are recycled from the last Cabinet in a move Kenyans likened to emptying the contents of an exhaust tanker into another.

Mbadi even shot a celebration video, with suited vixens, smiling with their molars, singing. Wandayi, the Ugunja MP, was picked to handle the Energy Ministry. Wandayi has been a critic of fuel price-raising measures. But now, he is firmly a member of the wheelbarrow movement, expected to endorse every action of his soon-to-be boss.