Tufe, a fallacy of cowards

The Coast region will most likely go to the 2022 general elections more divided than ever.

In the last two general elections, the region was solidly behind the Orange Democratic Party with Kilifi governor Amason Kingi and his Mombasa counterpart Hassan Joho taking the stewardship in uniting the region.

For now, it is hard to say where the allegiance of the two stands. What is easy to say is that the two are sailing in different boats.

The Tufe fallacy

Both Kingi and Joho were political high riders in ODM for their terms in office.

While Joho announced he would vie for the Presidency in 2022, Kingi has remained mum on his political move after his term ends.

Cleverly, he (Kingi) coined the Tufe ideology. To some, it was the only way to turn around the fortunes of the region but to most people, Tufe is a fallacy of the cowards.

Taken literally, for those who understand Tufe, it’s a small football made from old and tattered clothes and polythene papers that are picked from dumping sites.

This ball is normally played in small pitches with goalposts being stones or small sticks.

Tufe rules.

Very few of the 17 laws of football apply while playing Tufe.

The golden rule while playing this ball is that you do not dribble past the owner of the Tufe.

If you do that, there are two consequences, you are either kicked out of the match or the owner takes the ball away signalling the end of the match.

If it happens the owner feels like going home or for whatever reason he is to get out of the match, that will be the end of that match for that day.

Also Read: Kingi cannot form a political party-MP Baya

In most cases, the owner of the ball will handpick those who will play. If you have any tiff with him be assured that you will not play that ball.

In a nutshell, Tufe is about egocentrism and hate.

It is not clear if Kingi is trying to build the Coast party based on the Tufe philosophy.

Political pundits have however regarded Kingi as a political coward who cannot fight for the region but someone interested in saving his face, politically.

When he last visited Ganze, ODM party leader Raila Odinga questioned Kingi why ODM has suddenly changed when his term is coming to an end and not when he was seeking election and re-election.

“It is ODM that picked Kingi from where he was and poliched him to what he is today. It is rather amazing to see him now branding the party all sorts of names and he wants to form his party. That is being mean,” said Raila

Existing political parties

The launch of Tufe has failed to take place on several occasions.

The idea was to merge all existing political parties in the region into one ‘indomitable’ party

The disunity in these parties is said to have derailed the efforts to merge them and talks are still on course.

The Tufe was to be launched in March. The launch date was deferred to June, we are in August and 2022 is beckoning.

Most of the political parties were formed out of mistrust between members and officials of the existing parties.

Recently, Kilifi north MP Owen Baya and his Malindi counterpart Aisha Jumwa tried to revamp Kadu Asili which is associated with Ronald Ngala’s family.

The bid was however thwarted by the officials of the party.

Both Baya and Jumwa blamed Kingi for the failed attempt to take over the party.

They later announced their strong support for the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party