When frogs stop cows from drinking water

By Ibrahim Ndamwe

The phrase was made famous by Kanu boss Uhuru Kenyatta when his mentor, then President Daniel arap Moi, introduced him at a public rally in Nakuru.

Then, Mr Moi intended to crown him party chairman at a national party delegates’ conference at Kasarani – to the chagrin of other passionate contenders such as George Saitoti, Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Cyrus Jirongo. Granted, the disenchanted lot was snorting fire but Uhuru remained undeterred: "A frog’s eyes cannot deter a cow from drinking water," he snarled.

Well, Uhuru did drink from the waterhole when he, indeed, was crowned party leader. But the frogs, now seething with righteous rage, ganged up into a massive headlamp called Narc, beat Jomo’s son and forced him to kiss the presidential waterhole goodbye.

One would imagine that Raila would learn from Uhuru and forswear any further reference to frogs, cows and such. But he forgot. After all, he, together with Kibaki and other new kids on the block, were basking in the glory of citizens chanting, "Yote yawezekana bila Moi."

To his surprise, though, it is not frogs that surfaced soon after within Narc but baboons. So Raila became a dog. The people in government, he swore, were baboons stuck up the tree needlessly chanting "nyeff nyeff", forgetting that he, the dog, awaited them on the ground with bared teeth.

Frogs and cows

To his credit, he rambunctiously tore into the baboons when they slid down the tree during the referendum. His success emboldened him so much that he forgot about Uhuru and got talking about frogs and cows again.

It happened in the runup to the 2007 elections. The presidential waterhole was beckoning once more and his ODM-K army was approaching on the double. Then some spoiler ran away with the party’s registration certificate and gave it to his rival, Kalonzo Musyoka. Raila — ever the pragmatist — studied the situation, transformed himself quickly into a cow and snarled, "Frogs cannot stop cows from drinking water."

Fierce croaks

In retrospect, he should have been worried stiff about those frogs. For in a short while, they would team up with another bunch of disparate frogs under the PNU banner and croak the ODM juggernaut away from the waterhole.

The cows screamed "haki yetu", and spontaneously threw this and chopped that into pieces. But the frogs croaked back, promising only half the loaf even as they — quite spontaneously, too — burnt this and chopped that.

Did the cows and the frogs get to drink amicably at the waterhole, sharing Cabinet positions, ambassadorial posts and the many other fruits of uhuru that the electorate only gets to eat, as Francis Imbuga would say, second-hand? Do the baboons still scream "nyeff nyeff" as the dogs wait beneath the tree with bared teeth?

Who is the frog now?

Or is it, perhaps, possible that Raila and his chest-thumping ODM brigade have all along been the frogs that couldn’t stop cows from drinking water and the baboons that pointlessly scream "nyeff nyeff" as dogs wait beneath the tree with bared teeth?