By O Onyakundi
Millicent Omanga’s greatest undoing was to underestimate the role that one’s ethnicity plays in the politics of Nairobi. One ‘Esagasaga Night’ at ‘The Carnivore’ a couple of months ago, chants of ODM! ODM! rent the air the moment she stepped onto the stage. This infuriated her, she lost her cool and retaliated with ‘unprintables’ that were delivered in Ekegusii, and mentioned the revelers’ mothers. This left everyone wondering if she cared at all for the Kisii vote in Nairobi.
The best opportunity to seduce the Kisiis of Nairobi ‘face to face’ and ‘one on one’ was hence lost. Next, she was invited to a vernacular radio station to address the entire Abagusii community on her candidature. She insisted on speaking English because she claimed she couldn’t speak Ekegusii well enough to sustain a conversation. Her second best opportunity to seduce the Kisiis of Nairobi was hence lost as well.
In her naivety, she probably figured that because the Abagusii of Nairobi are in the ODM, it wasn’t worth a dime to expend any effort to woo them. Besides everywhere she went with her campaign goodies from Kayole, to Dandora, to Mwiki, and other largely Kikuyu settlements, the Kikuyu people there kept assuring her of their votes. The first sign that she was beginning to wake up and smell the coffee came through a rant she posted on her Facebook Timeline recently whining about how her opponents ~ all Kikuyu ~ were telling the Jubilee supporters in Nairobi not to vote outside their ethnic community. But she soldiered on.
The second sign that the coffee had hit her nostrils was last night on TV when she was seen yelling her frustrations through the grills of the closed gate to Jubilee House. The third sign that she has not only smelt the coffee, but drank it too is this picture of her seated outside Jubilee House looking deflated, defeated, forlon, fallen, pitifully sad, abandoned and lonely.
And that is why Kidero could not let Ester Passaris face off with Beatrice Kwamboka in a free and fair contest for the ODM Nairobi Woman Rep position because ‘Mcheza kwao hutunzwa’. All non Kikuyus in the ODM would automatically line up behind Kwamboka, and snub Passaris just like all Kikuyus in Jubilee lined up behind Shebesh and snubbed Omanga. In a ‘man eat man society’, if you ain’t got a seat on the table, you are probably on the menu. Dear, Kisii aspirants with aspirations, kindly note that our seat is on the ODM table. In Jubilee party, we are on the menu.
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