OWINO: Wandayi’s pick to Cabinet part of excellent leadership

Following the appointment of ODM officials into Cabinet, including the party’s director of political affairs and National Assembly Minority leader, Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi, many commentators have erroneously pointed out that the legislator stands to lose the most. 

According to such pundits, whereas former Governors Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya were jobless after both serving two terms and not standing for election in 2022, and whereas outgoing ODM chairman John Mbadi was merely a nominated MP, Wandayi is leaving a secure parliamentary seat at a time of great political turbulence.

However, I hold the view that Wandayi has shown courage and boldness, which have been features of his politics thus far. When called upon to help navigate the challenges facing the energy sector, he was never going to chicken out of it. Working for Ugunja people was a brilliant mandate, but obviously, working for the Kenyan people, including the same erstwhile electors in Ugunja, is a responsibility that comes with great honour and prestige, and I trust my outgoing MP to deliver with flying colours.

The Ugunja legislator is a self-effacing person, so not many Kenyans may know the quality of work he has done on the ground. He is also a thoroughly consultative leader who has worked very well with grassroots networks, building capacity and launching development projects without the need to make a fuss over it.

The National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula in a recent heated debate in the House actually had to remind Wandayi that “you have been one of the most sober leaders in the House”, testimony to the wide respect the legislator enjoys even among colleagues and parliamentary leadership.

To begin with, Wandayi remains the only MP to have had a strategic development plan in the three terms he was elected, and each item had a scorecard. But education remains one of his biggest achievements. Under his education pillar, he has established six secondary schools as NG-CDF flagship projects since 2013, the latest being the popular Dr Ida Odinga Girls Secondary School, Asango.

Indeed, up to 50 per cent of schools in Ugunja constituency now have newly developed and fully equipped twin science laboratories in accordance with policy direction contained in the National Education Sector Plan, where the national government is increasingly giving precedence to the construction of science laboratories, science rooms, provision of laboratory equipment and science kits, in order to spur interest in sciences among the Kenyan student population.

Beyond education, Wandayi’s projects in the key sectors of water and sanitation, security, women and youth, infrastructure, healthcare and agriculture, dot the land. Needless to belabour the point that excellence at the constituency level is makes for a perfect stepping stone for national leadership.

The Energy ministry especially, fraught with corruption and lucrative tenders in equal measure, calls for not just a quintessential professional at the helm, but one whose track record shows an aversion for corruption, ineptitude, lethargy and the incompetence which inform Kenya’s civil service.

I may not be privy to the details of what informed President Ruto’s decision on appointment of known opposition figures into government, but I am certain that when it came to offering especially the Treasury and Energy ministries to people outside his Kenya Kwanza coalition, a lot of thought and political consideration must have gone into it.

I believe that the President, cognisant of the fact that his tax policies and the cost of living, two areas whose policy foundations are firmly grounded in the two ministries, wanted two picks who could navigate the national crises in energy and finance with expert hands while enjoying a level of public trust. In Mbadi and Wandayi, Ruto could not have made better picks.

There is another angle one has to look at it from. A broad-based government ideally aims to create broader inclusion and gain acceptance in a large part of the country. To do so, government picks have to be people whose character and professional ethics enhance this broad appeal.

The President’s privileged intelligence access must have been solid enough to know that a post-Raila landscape in Luo Nyanza would have both Wandayi and Mbadi in leading roles. Indeed, the appointments of the two were met with jubilation in many parts of Luoland. For that, at least in the short term, they help the President find a semblance of stability in government while expanding his own acceptance base in the country.

When approved by the National Assembly, Wandayi will find a full desk of national issues awaiting. Consumer prices of energy in the country still remain high, fuel costs keep raising the cost of living, investment in power production is low and the perennial problem of opaque power purchase agreements from independent producers remains unsolved.

And this is before one adds the monster of ministry cartels, long used to looting via budgeted corruption in procurement deals, coming in the equation to frustrate the work of the new CS. It will require abundant grace and courage to run the ministry.

Part of the national outrage accompanying recent riots by young Kenyans demanding change revolved around what was seen as supreme incompetence in the Ruto regime. The Ministry of Energy has the ability to become a key driver of economic prosperity if managed well.

As Wandayi would know, having served in the powerful parliamentary Public Accounts Committee before, Kenya’s manufacturing has stagnated under the weight of high energy costs and infrastructure. Being an outsider, he therefore brings in a cleaner reputation away from the infamous incompetence of the Ruto regime. If he focuses on these basics, he will certainly deliver.

What, however must be clear is that these changes would make no sense if the President himself doesn’t change his management style. Ruto’s micro-management of departments, and his affinity for roadside policy pronouncements, form a big part of the failures in his government. Talented performers like Wandayi, coming from a different background far removed from the UDA near-cult operation, will need space to deliver on the mandate. In fact, it will be Ruto’s loss if he curtails smart men like the Ugunja legislator.

Many people in the grassroots actually want the President and his team to succeed. He has to go out of his way to lead from the front. This is no time for empty promises and rhetoric. We have just come from a scary and turbulent time.

To steer the ship back to its course, expert but calm hands are called for. And the first impression is that people are willing to give his new team a chance. With people like Wandayi, maybe he can finally hope for better tidings.

Political commentator