Scarcely had Miguna Miguna finished talking about emancipating the Luo nation from Odingaism before the idea fizzled out of the minds of those who cared to listen to the sentiment.
It is even puzzling that the liberator aborted his pet project and ducked back to the West, confusing the few who might have spared a moment to follow his theatrics. While the fiery lawyer is a man of controversies, at the same time, miguna is a man who commands attention, which starts with his gigantic stature and unique homonymous name – Miguna Miguna.
While Miguna’s name has gained fame in Kenyan politics, many are oblivious to the meaning of the name. The name is derived from the Luo word migwena, which means to gnaw. Gnawing is synonymous with rodents such as rats or mice. Apart from being highly destructive animals, rats are a nuisance.
Their irritation can be so damning to appoint that they would want to feed on someone while still alive. They shrewdly bite a sleeping person and then soothe the pain by blowing the bitten part with their nose hence the saying “oyieyo kayi to kudhi” (rats bite you and soothe by blowing on the wound) – a befitting Luo mythology that we enjoyed in our formative years.
Whether by design or default, Miguna’s comportment may outdo the rat’s behavior by a decent margin. However, before delving deeper into such a comparison, it would give the good lawyer some impartiality if I unpacked her accolades first.
Having practiced law for more than 27 years in Ontario, Canada, Miguna would easily claim his international appeal, which is appreciably true. This fact alone would have informed Miguna that referring to Mr. Raila Odinga’s admirers as cows is tantamount to demeaning them to some lower animal status, which is wrong.
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Whether by design or default, Miguna’s illegal deportation may outdo the rat’s behavior by a decent margin. However, before delving deeper into such a comparison, it’s only fair to give the maverick lawyer accolades for his stellar legal credentials.
Having practiced law for more than 20 years in Canada, Miguna undisputedly claims his international appeal, which is considerable in achievement and imagination.
One would have thought his credentials and the prestige of his achievements alone would have informed Miguna that referring to former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s supporters as cows are equivalent to demeaning them to some lower animal status, which is the wrong thing to do.
But he could care less.
A lawyer of his repute would love to tame his tongue in circumstances where decorum should supersede tongue lash even when offended. Good choices of words should be sweeter in a lawyer’s mouth than offending invectives.
That’s why it is repugnant for a lawyer to keep throwing tirades at a man who has served his bit, who has grown-up children and grandchildren.
Calling Raila Odinga a conman comes easy to Miguna’s mouth. Still, it paints him as one who has lost touch with the tenets of social etiquette, which we all know he can attain judging from his international success as a lawyer and as a family man.
A lawyer of his standing should discern when an attack could be considered defamatory and when to seek legal redress for conman-ship rather than yapping in social media.
It will sound like I have some vendetta against the lawyer if I don’t point out the 2020 seminal case at the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario on commercial leasing, marked with racist undertones.
Miguna’s client, a black proprietor of Elias Restaurant, was granted relief against forfeiture by Justice Edward Morgan. He won the appeal case lodged in the Ontario Court of Appeal by the landlord in 2021.
Against these backdrops, wuod Nyando proved he’s not only a polished lawyer with impeccable credentials but an internationally acclaimed lawyer, with a great gift of the gab, for that matter – but ever emitting arrogance with audacity instead of eloquence and wisdom.
Going by his stellar performance in the legal space, he would have won many hearts in Luo land had he chosen decorum over pointed attacks against Odinga.
Miguna came to the limelight shortly after the end of the suppressive Kanu regime after returning from self-imposed exile to Canada.
Raila tried to hone his political prowess by allowing him to serve in his newly formed party after the then-just-concluded referendum of 2005.
He served as ODM’s senior adviser and strategist between 2006 and 2009. On the formation of the grand coalition government in the run-up to 2007 post-election violence, he automatically assumed the position of senior adviser on coalition, constitutional and legal affairs to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya from 2009 to 2012 courtesy of Hon. Raila.
Miguna was thrust to the pinnacle of power in Kenya by assuming the position. While serving in the Prime Minister’s office, he also served as the Joint Secretary to the Permanent Committee on the Management of the affairs of the Grand Coalition.
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He fell out with Raila when the grand coalition government’s sunset and ran back to Canada, where he wrote a book to expose the dealings within the coalition government.
If you have read Miguna’s “Peeling Back the Mask: A Quest for Justice in Kenya,” a book whose purpose was to cast aspersions on the person and character of Odinga, you quickly realize it’s a vendetta book, therefore, wouldn’t take the literature thereof seriously.
Miguna’s and Raila’s paths converged again when they campaigned against Uhuru Kenyatta’s second term in 2017. The unity culminated with Miguna leading the swearing-in of Raila as the “People’s President” due to the disputed result that declared Uhuru Kenyatta as the President-elect before the court annulled the first election.
Swearing in Raila disturbed the government to the point of deporting him back to Canada again, his passport and citizenship being forfeited. The subsequent “handshake” between Uhuru and Raila exacerbated Miguna’s hate for the two making him a sworn enemy and critique of the duo while, on the other hand, a staunch proponent of Dr. Ruto’s quest for the presidency.
Supporting Ruto has earned him back his passport. He’s now in the country trying to “emancipate” the Luos from Odingaism. Ironically, when he visited his native village where his umbilical cord was buried, as he habitually says, only paltry village mates turned out. It was, sadly, a low-keyed event.
It seemed his Luos’ “emancipation” quest fizzled out at the verge of its inception.
However, one wonders if Miguna has any political leadership achievements to write about apart from his professional milestones.
Besides responsibilities in the political offices he gained from the generosity of the person he now calls a con artist, he has never held any elected office — not even as a Nyando Cattle Dip Welfare Association (NCDW) Chairman.
In elective politics, he has only lived up to the billing of migwena – “oyieyo kayi to kudhi?”
His debut in national politics in 2007 saw him badly humiliated in ODM party primaries for the Nyando parliamentary seat by a little-known Fred Outa. He came a distant third.
He would later vie for the Nairobi gubernatorial seat in 2017, where he kissed the dust again when he emerged a distant fourth, garnering a paltry 9,891 (0.64%) votes out of over 1 million registered voters.
He could not even manage 1 percent for ease of integer recognition. The only elective post that Miguna has ever won was back in his university days when he was elected SONU treasurer in 1986-1987 before exiling himself to evade the repressive Kanu regime.
The brief about Miguna reveals a person who has attained quite a feat in the professional career leadership front instead of political and elective leadership.
His professional stature has encouraged him to think he can be an elected leader, inflating his ego and dwarfing his otherwise gigantic gait.
It behooves me to offer unsolicited advice to the man from Toronto by way of Nyando to tame his ego and tongue. Otherwise, they might be a liability to him with his current strange bedfellows.
But on the same token, carefulness is a factor of decorum that resides in insightful leadership that a leader, by all intents and purposes, would aspire to give out. A leader on a global stage would love to play by the rules of erudition and decency to attract the admiration of prospective followers, if not clients, for that matter.