One can say when a child takes the fi rst breath of air outside a mother’s womb, his or her destiny is equally breathed into the little bundle of joy’s life.
It’s a double-barrelled phenomenon.
For the lazy, they cruise through life and exit without any achievement to speak of, opting to blame the world and everyone in it, except themselves.
For the ambitious, they push themselves and achieve something refusing to believe they’re destined to fail.
More importantly, believing they are destined to succeed no matter what circumstances that first breath of life found them in.
That is not to say anything about poverty where many are trapped mostly to no fault of their own.
These are related but different concepts.
A person can be poor notwithstanding their best efforts to extract themselves from poverty.
A person can be born rich and fight their way to being poor or impoverished simply because of some combination of poor judgement, lack of drive and certainly lack of discipline born of taking everything for granted.
And then there are the millions in between who are neither poor nor rich otherwise known as the “middle class.”
For one to escape poverty and find themselves in the middle class is no walk in the park but it is for one to escape the middle class to the rich—only if you are a “tenderpreneur” or otherwise highly connected with the ruling government.
Falling from the middle class to the poor or broke class is a choice of the easy variety but escaping poverty to the middle class and even into the rich category in due time is a combination of sheer determination, luck and often a helping hand which can come in many forms, one of which for the believers is God.
There are many such stories, namely, those who have risen from rags to riches but never highlighted enough to encourage others.
The same phenomenon is alive and well in the political world.
Presidents come and go.
Politicians come and go. Individuals come from obscurity to become very powerful individuals in the government of the day.
Powerful individuals often find themselves chopped at the knees and come tumbling down. For many, that is the end of their lives as we knew it and they fall right back into obscurity.
I recall one time walking up to KICC steps and heard someone yelling my name so loud first, I was confused but secondly, I got concerned because I thought it was some madman who somehow was sent to land some blows.
This was at the height of the 2007 political season, with many uncouth characters seething with rage against anyone expressing a view they didn’t like.
It is a disease beyond this piece but that was in my mind as this fellow shouted my name and before I knew it, he was right there in front of me.
No blows landed but he introduced himself and even though the name sounded familiar, I did not recognise him until he identified himself as former MP for some constituency from my neck of the woods.
The name then rang a bell and before I even said anything, the man grabbed my briefcase and said he would be happy to carry it for me.
You can imagine where that was going and ended there, namely, TKK.
Those are the ones who are finished politically and would do anything to survive.
Not former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
When Gachagua was impeached and removed from office, he was probably the most hated politician in the country from all circles simply because of his utterances.
Everyone wrote him off as someone who at best would become a village elder forgotten by the masses in no time.
However, the man from Wamunyoro had different plans as he swallowed his pride and decided to reinvent himself while carefully tiptoeing around the landmines known as the Kenyatta family and one Raila Amolo Odinga.
His pleas for forgiveness, especially with the Kenyatta family were initially muted but now with a bullhorn.
Will the Kenyatta family forgive him? If yes, his mission to vanquish his former boss will be complete.
The US-based writer is a political commentator
