Kenya: Miguna Miguna’s Statement to the Press 18 July 2012

from: gordon teti

Dear Miguna,

As a God’s messenger, I am obligated to convey to you, solemnly and with deep humulity, God’s message. Miguna, has sent me to tell you to repent to the Kenyan Nation, the people of Kenya and to the individuals, including the Right Honourable Prime Minister Raial Odinga that you have adulterated their names and reputation by accusing them of things that you know deeply in your heart that are not true. Brother Miguna, you and me know that you are playing politics, dirty politics to malign and derail Raila’s presidential campaign. And it is an elaborate scheme involving Raila’s political opponents who are using you. Everybody knows that this is what is happening. Kenyans are not that stupid to believe you!

Thank you for forwarding the Press Statement copy of which is attached. As you can remember, you and I were in close communication in 2006/2007 before we sharply disagreed following your letter to the then leading opposition candidate, who is the current Prime Minister the Right Honourable Raila A. Odinga. I am not going to revisit our fallout as you are privy to the details of the same. In a nutshell, you tried to destroy my character, image, standing and a long time relationship with Raila A. Odinga. I stood firm and defended and protected my character against your missile attack. I won in the end and you lost.I can confirm to you here TODAY, Wednesday, July 18, 2012 that you are not only going to lose the ongoing malicious war that you are waging against Raila A. Odinga, but you are going to pay dearly and regret for many years to come. This is a useless battle that you are fighting on behalf of PNU/G7. In your Book “Peeling Back The Mask” your character went through a complete metamorphosis in that the people who were lords of impunity and corruption just the other day before you fell out with Raila Odinga are today as clean as cotton. In your changed status mind, Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Kalonzo Musyoka et al have been babtized by John the Babtist and therefore are better leaders to become President of the Republic of Kenya as opposed to Raila Odinga who was your hero yesterday. While I understand that it is humane to be angry but please pause a little bit and get angry in a smart way. This uncontrolled anger is going to consume you; it is going to destroy. That is the message from God Almighty to you!

As a God’s messenger, I am obligated to convey to you, solemnly and with deep humulity, God’s message. Miguna, has sent me to tell you to repent to the Kenyan Nation, the people of Kenya and to the individuals, including the Right Honourable Prime Minister Raial Odinga that you have adulterated their names and reputation by accusing them of things that you know deeply in your heart that are not true. Brother Miguna, you and me know that you are playing politics, dirty politics to malign and derail Raila’s presidential campaign. And it is an elaborate scheme involving Raila’s political opponents who are using you. Everybody knows that this is what is happening. Kenyans are not that stupid to believe you!

Remember that God Loves You! Repent and Ask for Forgiven!

Welcome back to Toronto and come to Church for prayers.

Gordon Teti

—– Forwarded Message —–
From: Miguna Gowok
To: gordon teti
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 3:42:21 AM
Subject: Re: Miguna flies out as row rages over his memoirs

FYI

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 3:48 AM, gordon teti wrote:

Am glad that Miguna has left Kenya. This is because speculation, which I distance myself from, has it that PNU/G7 were going to kill him and blame it on Raila for political mileage.
. . .

Statement to the Press 18 July 2012 – final.doc
30K
STATEMENT OVER THE ONGOING FURORE OVER MY BOOK,
PEELING OFF THE MASK: A QUEST FOR JUSTICE
BY MIGUNA MIGUNA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

I wish to sincerely thank the more than five hundred Kenyans and friends of Kenya of good will who attended my book launch on Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi. Thanks to you, it was a splendid success!

Let me also express my gratitude to thousands of people, who have sent me short text messages, emails or telephoned me to encourage me and to express their unyielding support before and after the launch.

I am issuing this statement from Toronto, Canada, where my family and I have just arrived and hope to start enjoying a much-deserved and pre-planned summer holiday. Contrary to malicious reports in the media, my family and I booked our flights on May 24, 2012. I am not sure why some people are implying that I should have sought and obtained their permission before traveling abroad. No one has a right to my family privacy.

I am particularly disturbed by fake and false media reports that I had fled into exile. Some desperate political goons for hire have even claimed that I have ‘fled from justice.’ There have been suggestions that I have fled because of law suits and potential arrest. By the time I left Kenya, I had not been served with any legal notices or law suits. In any event, neither could have prevented me from traveling.

I have earned a living practicing law for more than 15 years. Therefore, a lawsuit isn’t something I run away from. Nor would I be scared of an incompetent, misguided and delusional political announcement to the media by the director of public prosecutions that I should record a statement with the Kenya Police. Keriako Tobiko has no mandate over the International Criminal Court. Instead of issuing threats to me – someone he considers a potential witness – the Witness Protection Act compels him to provide me with protection. Threatening me over the media is a clear breach. Consequently, I will treat his politically motivated statement with the contempt it deserves.

I boarded my flight at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on July 16, 2012, like any other passenger. Based on media reports, the Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, also left for China almost at the same time our flight departed. Was he also fleeing into exile?

My book, Peeling Back the Mask is a political memoir. It contains my life’s narrative. It explains my background, growth, maturity, experiences, reflections and thoughts. It attempts to record history. It also tries to unmask the culture of impunity that has bedeviled our country for more than fifty years. For me, any debates, discussions and further reflections that result from the book’s publication can only deepen our thoughts, expand the democratic space, entrench the rule of law and help broaden good governance. That’s a good thing.

However, when I see ravenous mobs burn my effigy, bury a coffin symbolizing my death and threatening me, my immediate and extended family merely because I wrote a book that they perceive to be critical of their political deity even though, in all likelihood, they might not have read; it demonstrates a level of intolerance, ignorance and base loyalty to certain political personages in a manner that cannot be positive.

Chillingly, as my effigy and ‘coffin’ were being burnt and buried in a mock funeral in Nyando by Raila’s fanatics, the Prime Minister failed to see the need to restrain his supporters. He didn’t openly call for peaceful and reasoned debates as we would expect of someone claiming to be a statesman.

As a mob was holding my funeral procession, calling for my ‘deportation to Canada’, threatening my brother and his family, Raila’s intellectual groupies were unleashing a coordinated assault on my character and reputation through the media. False allegations are being dredged up in a desperate but futile attempt to bolster the ambitions and campaigns of a man whose quest for power has reached a dead end. But rather than conduct a searing self-evaluation, they want to hurl all the blame on me.

Raila Odinga is running for president. I am not. As a person who has occupied an exalted public position in our society for decades; one who has enjoyed immense privileges; and one who is seeking even more power and privileges; Raila Odinga must be audited, vetted and weighed thoroughly for his record in public life before he can be found to have satisfied the requirements for election. If he doesn’t like the audit, he must be prepared to cede ground and relinquish his political ambitions. There are no two ways around it. But he cannot intimidate, threaten or beat us into submission.

Two questions we need to ask Raila are these: (a) If his supporters and groupies can burn my effigy and mock coffin and attack me viciously in the era of the new constitution that guarantees me the right to express myself fully including in book form merely on account that I have written a book they dislike because it is critical of him; what are they capable of inflicting if Raila were to become president? (b) Are the rights Raila proudly claims he fought for only meant for his supporters and sycophants?

I wish to inform the country that when The Standard newspaper purportedly published an article titled “Miguna answers Sarah Elderkin” on or about July 17, 2012, I was in a jet somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and couldn’t have been capable of accessing Sarah’s piece in the Daily Nation (which I have still not read, having just arrived in Toronto), and definitely didn’t have the time to write it. It’s unfortunate that The Standard newspaper published a misleading and fake article and maliciously purported it to be mine. By this statement, I would like to pout The Standard newspaper on notice that I shall take appropriate legal action against it for this false and clearly malicious publication.

Moreover, I don’t have the time, interest or the intention of arguing with Sarah over a book she has clearly not read. She answers herself at pages 496-498 of my book as well as in her article, “Keep It Real and Keep It Balanced” published in the May 19, 2011 issue of the Star newspaper in which she corroborated each and every claim I have made in Peeling Back the Mask. Readers should be aware, nonetheless, that I have more than fifty emails from Sarah confirming the runway corruption in the Prime Minister’s Office. If I was like Sarah, I would have unleashed them in defense of myself. But I am not going to bore my readers with details of the rot of and around Raila Odinga because the whole country already knows the truth.

Let me also make it clear that I do not have a Facebook account, have never used that platform to communicate and have no intentions of doing so any time soon. Consequently, purported Facebook publications bearing my name should be ignored as mischievous.

I am scheduled back to Kenya on or about August 18th, 2012, when my family holiday and publicity tour of my book ends. On arrival, I shall issue a comprehensive statement on some of the issues that have been raised in the media in recent days over my latest book and attendant political issues. Until then, I will enjoy my working holiday with my family.

Finally, let me say this: I will not be intimidated, threatened or shouted into silence by con-men, busy-bodies, hangers-on and political groupies.

The struggle against impunity will and must continue.

Thank you.

Dated July 17, 2012 at the City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

from: gordon teti
date: Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 4:43 PM
subject: Fw: Miguna Miguna’s Statement to the Press 18 July 2012

gordon teti
Jul 18
to newsdesk, news, me

Muguna’s response to my communication to him. Details forwarded here below…..

—– Forwarded Message —–
From: Miguna Gowok
To: gordon teti
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 11:20:34 AM
Subject: Re: Miguna Miguna’s Statement to the Press 18 July 2012

Could you please explain to me what crimes I have committed; who investigated, prosecuted and passed judgment on those crimes and when they did so?

My brother, I ask you to cease and desist from scandalizing my name and besmirching my character.

I do not know who you are; I have never met you and believe you, too, have never met me. Please stop threatening me.

Thank you.

Miguna
. . .

8 thoughts on “Kenya: Miguna Miguna’s Statement to the Press 18 July 2012

  1. ORIKO

    I have gone through above thread. My opinions are: as far as the principles of civilization are concerned, it is a great crime in a society that is enshrined in the rule of law and advocates for the democratic mainstay and good governance ethics; to indulge in judging its members who happen to be opposed to the school of thought and have them bullied. What precedence are we trying to set for the next gene’? I thought freedom of expression is well embedded in the so called new constitution that the society achieved by writing its history by blood-ink.

    The problem with us the blacks is that we normally tend to judge a book by its cover title. How many of us exhausted page by page the voluminous “Peeling Back the Mask?” How many afforded its tarrif and went throught it? Challenges are the order of life in the universe; even Deity was tried by the Lucifer, how come that a mere fallible human being can escape trials? The best approach to deal with a situation like this is to stand it and come out bold in response to the message being conveyed by the book; not by injustice but by justice.

    Africans never read, and the best way to hide something for an African is to keep it in a book form, he won’t see it forever because reading is never an African culture, thus why the whites came up with something called Abstract/executive summary which I myself believe was designed for lazy readers christenned the busy executives. They just gloss-over and blast up. Indeed as the law of gravity states that something that goes up must come down; and indeed in this expensive posture, often trends like these have harboured reactions that have implanted negative perceptions in the peoples minds which turned disastrous.

    So I am sure even some of the well informed [elites] have not read the philosophy of Peeling Back the Mask, but have rather chosen to jump to a negative conclusion that it aims at devastating the hopes of some elites who are captivated in a “Wild goose chase” since independence.

    As a born writer, one of the writing principles states that “if the audience isn’t contented with the messages conveyed in the philosophy in a book of contention, the best way for the audience to revenge is not by bullying the author [an approach which may prejudice his natural justice] but rather by COUNTER-WRITING A BOOK TO DISAPPROVE THE FORMER.”

    This practice is non-existent in African set-up and I am convinced that it will take Africa centuries to achieve this culture, thus why the best African writing resources like Ngugi wa Thion’go et al were forced by circumstances to flee.

    Need I say more?!

  2. ORIKO

    “If an egg breaks due to outside forces inside life ends. But if it breaks due to inside forces life begins. Great things always begin from inside”.

  3. Malaki Wambura

    Eh wuod Oruko is this true
    Africans Behaving African
    July 23, 2012
    Miguna Miguna arrested in Canada
    He has been arrested for assaulting a Ugandan journalist.
    africanlists.com/miguna-miguna-arrested-in-canada/ – Tafsiri ukurasa huu
    2 days ago – Miguna Miguna arrested in Canada. He has been arrested for assaulting a Ugandan journalist. Written by admin Tagged with canada, …
    Regards

  4. Malaki Wambura

    Dear Miguna,
    Please reply me why did Jakom give you wuod nyando the position of a constitution advisor and not any other tribe isnt that trbalism/nepotism. Why did you keep hovering around him while in Canada. Kech ne kai ahinya wuod oruko. tho pesa mit makata iyudo to ichamo. Where di you get the money to go for holiday in Canada yet you had sold your house in Badford and you were sacked without benefits about six months ago. Nyakabed ni ne ifuenyo kamoro ma ohobre
    Malaki

  5. Malaki Wambura

    Dear Miguna,
    Yie iduoka wuod oruko ja Nyado, to iling nango koso miseyudo kuom jowago deyi. Ah dendi bende aneno kaber.
    Malaki

  6. Kennedy jakisii

    Miguna is an honorable, intelligent, hardworking, knowledgeable kenyan that must be allowed to air his views, to tell his story, to reveal what he feels deeply are wrongs being perpetrated by politicians against the kenyan people. True, he does come out as too PRO LUO……and hence tribalist……but, at the same time……..he shows that it is a trait he hates and is trying hard to get rid off…….as a none luo……..I find it very difficult to ignore the tribal credentials of all leading Luo politicians……..why does ODM have to look like a Luo political entity instead of a national party?

  7. Kennedy jakisii

    Miguna is an honorable, intelligent, hardworking, knowledgeable kenyan that must be allowed to air his views, to tell his story, to reveal what he feels deeply are wrongs being perpetrated by politicians against the kenyan people. True, he does come out as too PRO LUO……and hence tribalist……but, at the same time……..he shows that it is a trait he hates and is trying hard to get rid off…….as a none luo……..I find it very difficult to ignore the tribal credentials of all leading Luo politicians……..why does ODM have to look like a Luo political entity instead of a national party?

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