Those who love his tweets retweet them as authoritative. Those who loathe him regard him as a hate monger.
Fearless and incisive newspaper articles and social media posts have made Mutahi Ngunyi a household name in Kenya. He rarely misses the opportunity to brazenly speak his mind on topical issues.
Those who love his tweets retweet them as authoritative. Those who loathe him regard him as a hate monger.
This week, the bespectacled political scientist found himself in unfamiliar territory – fighting all-round rebuke and a potential lawsuit for allegedly stirring ethnic hatred.
What began as a general broadside against Opposition leader Raila Odinga over the controversial sugar imports from Uganda soon degenerated into full outburst and ridicule of communities from western Kenya believed to be supporters of the former prime minister.
“Raila should be put on trial. The judge: poverty-stricken Luos and Luhyas craving his bondage. Charge: selfishness, selfishness, selfishness,” Mr Ngunyi said in one of his controversial tweets.
In another tweet on August 21 he said: “Are Luos poor? No idea. They should tell us. Are there poverty-stricken Luos? Yes.
Statistics indicated that 82 per cent of people in Bondo (Odinga’s paternal home) live below poverty line.”
The reaction to Mr Ngunyi’s tirade on social media was swift and fast, even culminating in an official complaint to the National Cohesion and Integration Commission by Nairobi lawyer Apollo Mboya, who is also the chief executive officer of the Law Society of Kenya.
Mr Ngunyi apologised for his gaffes but his actions solidified his long-running dismissal of Mr Odinga as a political force ever since he coined the “tyranny of numbers” hypothesis in the run up to the 2013 General Election.
“I apologise to the Luo nation unreservedly. No harm intended. I am a product of Luo scholars whom I respect immensely. I eat the humble pie,” Mr Ngunyi tweeted on August 25.
The political scientist has been at loggerheads with supporters of the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (Cord) ever since he invented and popularised the controversial tyranny of numbers hypothesis.
This indicated that the Jubilee Alliance, led by Uhuru Kenyatta, would win the 2013 presidential election in the first round with a substantial majority over Cord contrary to assertions of numerous opinion polls.
Mr Ngunyi premised his hypothesis on electoral demographics that showed the Jubilee alliance had a large numerical advantage of bankable ethnic votes.
Cord did not take Mr Ngunyi’s assertion kindly and even called for his prosecution for stoking ethnic hatred and dividing the country into tribal clusters ahead of the elections.
The Cord did lose to the Jubilee Alliance Party, further fuelling the animosity between Mr Ngunyi and the Opposition, which accused the political scientist of being part of a scheme that unfairly influenced the outcome of the disputed presidential election.
Ever since the polls there has been acrimony between the two sides with Mr Ngunyi and Mr Odinga often trading barbs on diverse issues.
Just several weeks ago, the two were caught in a vicious war of words over the controversial ongoing slum-upgrading projects in Kibera and Kisumu.
Mr Ngunyi is part of the team of consultants that drew up a five-point strategy to revamp the National Youth Service (NYS) to engage in national development programmes such as the multibillion-shilling slum upgrade.
Some political analysts interpreted the scheme as one meant to tame Mr Odinga’s influence, triggering uproar from the former PM’s supporters.
Mr Ngunyi rushed in with a series of posts on Twitter admonishing Mr Odinga and his supporters for opposing a “well meaning” project and labelled the Cord leader a “lord of poverty”.
His tirade opened another standoff with former Youth Enterprise Development Fund chairman, Gor Semelang’o, who claimed that the blueprint fronted by Mr Ngunyi on the NYS transformation was not original but an adaptation of a report by a task force appointed by then Youth minister Mohammed Kuti.
Mr Ngunyi swiftly denied the claims even as Mr Semelang’o dug in with demands for clarity from the Devolution ministry.
The pundit has also fought controversies outside the political scene. He was at one point sued by the Ford Foundation alongside four others for allegedly fraudulently obtaining $127,000 (Sh12.7 million) from the foundation. But Mr Ngunyi said the charges were withdrawn for lack of evidence.
The money, according to an independent audit report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, was meant for a Nairobi-based non-governmental organisation – the Series on Alternative Research in East Africa Trust – where Mr Ngunyi once served as director.
Away from the public spats, the political analyst concentrates in his scholarly and consultancy works. He has taught at the University of Nairobi and the University of Leeds and University of Helsinki as a visiting research fellow.
He has also worked at the Institute for Policy Analysis and Research as an associate research fellow and the Scandinavian Institute for African Studies as a researcher on structural adjustments and political conditionality.
Mr Ngunyi is currently the Principal Fellow at both The Consulting House (TCH) and the Institute for Policy Exchange (IPEX), an autonomous trust created by the TCH board.
