In the grand theatre of politics, where alliances forge empires and betrayals carve footnotes, Niccolò Machiavelli once observed that “the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
Governor Abdi Ibrahim Hassan(Guyo) embodies this duality; a lion in the arena of governance, roaring through tangible triumphs, and a fox in navigating the snares of intra-clan intrigue.
His erstwhile protégé, Mohamed Roba Qoto (MRQ), the ousted Speaker of the Isiolo County Assembly, has devolved into a lone jackal, yapping at shadows of lost influence.
As Isiolo County – Kenya’s arid crucible of pastoralist dreams and devolved promise – braces for the 2027 electoral tempest, this is no mere feud. It is a masterclass in political alchemy: transforming goodwill into gold for one, and desperation into dross for the other.
What unfolds in Isiolo is a cautionary epic of loyalty’s ledger, where Guyo’s steady hand has turned a fractious county into a beacon of progress, while MRQ’s hasty gambits have left him exiled in the wilderness of irrelevance.
From Apprenticeship to Apostasy: The Perils of Ungrateful Elevation
Governor Guyo did not stumble into power; he clawed his way from the trenches of Nairobi’s Matopeni/Spring Valley Ward as an MCA, rising to Majority Leader before pivoting to Isiolo’s gubernatorial throne in 2022 on a Jubilee-Azimio ticket.
Elected amid clan fault lines and historical marginalization, he inherited a county plagued by water scarcity, crumbling infrastructure, and inter-ethnic skirmishes.
Yet, in under three years, Guyo has alchemized these challenges into milestones of resilience – a fox outwitting the traps of underfunding, a lion deterring the wolves of opposition.
Consider the ledger of his stewardship: the Isiolo-Modogashe Road, long a mirage of unfulfilled promises, now advances under Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) auspices, promising to slash travel times from days to hours and unlock markets for pastoralists in Garbatulla and beyond.
This would not have been achieved had it not been for Governor Guyo’s robust lobbying, making sure that the presidency is properly informed of the suffering of not just Isiolo people, but the entirety of Northern Kenya which has remained underserved since independence resulting into acute infrastructure underdevelopment and high levels of poverty.
The county referral hospital-Isiolo County Teaching and Referral Hospital(ICTRH), once a skeletal outpost, now boasts a functional ICU and has onboarded nearly 90 health workers, curbing maternal mortality in a region where distance devours lives.
Bursary schemes have funneled thousands of Borana, Sakuye, Turkana, and Samburu youth into classrooms, while water pans and boreholes in Merti, Sericho, and Oldonyiro hold firm against the frequent La Niña droughts.
Even as critics carp at his ‘multiple’ advisors and chief officers – appointments scandalized by Senator Dullo for supposedly ‘bloating’ the executive – Guyo defends them as necessities for a lean-budget county, the third-lowest funded nationally, where every shilling must stretch across 25,000 square kilometers of thornbush and hope. This is Machiavellian prudence: not extravagance, but strategic fortification.
Enter MRQ, the junior administrator whose ascent was pure political alchemy courtesy of Guyo.
Thrust into the Speakership in 2022 on the Governor’s unwavering goodwill – a nod to personal friendship and clan solidarity – MRQ was no battle-hardened tactician.
A career functionary lacking executive scars, he mistook the velvet glove of elevation for an iron crown.
Proximity bred entitlement; the assembly’s gavel became a scepter for backroom cabals.
By mid-2025, whispers of impeachment against Guyo – tabled on June 10 by Sericho MCA Abubakar Godana – crystallized into a full-throated revolt, with MRQ presiding over the chaotic June 26 vote that saw a section of MCAs oust the Governor on trumped-up charges of abuse of office, constitutional violations, and misconduct.
It was no principled stand, but a fox’s trap sprung from envy, ignoring the lion’s roar of results.
The denouement was swift and unforgiving. The High Court in Meru nullified the proceedings on June 27 for defying a conservatory order, branding MRQ and Godana in contempt.
The Senate, on July 9, terminated the farce outright, ruling the assembly’s sittings on June 18 and 26 unlawful – it overwhelmingly rejected the ‘ill-informed’ petition and chastised the owners of the petition for not abiding by any laid down constitutional procedures -exposing procedural farce as political farce.
MRQ’s ouster followed: gazetted out on June 27, replaced by Abdullahi Jaldesa Banticha amid assembly schisms that birthed parallel speakers, clerks, and chambers – a Babel of betrayal.
Arrested on attempted murder charges in June – allegedly to hobble the impeachment – he cried witch-hunt, but the courts saw through the charade, granting bail while the Senate’s gavel fell.
By September, Guyo had mended fences with 12 of the 16 impeaching MCAs, including crossovers like Peter Losu, Lemantile, and Rahma Abdikadir, turning foes into footnotes.
In Borana lore, the ungrateful camel that kicks its herder returns to the desert parched.
MRQ’s gambit was that camel: a self-inflicted exile from the Governor’s tent, where loyalty once warmed him.
The Biskili Fumble: A Jackal’s Howl in the Void
Desperation, as Sun Tzu might quip, is the loudest echo of defeat. At the December 13, 2025, Biskili fundraiser – a UDA-backed harambee for Borana elders’ medical aid, attended by MPs like Japheth Nyakundi and Reuben Bowen – MRQ seized the mic in a bid for resurrection.
Declaring himself a 2027 gubernatorial contender “alongside three others,” he curated a hit list of rivals, conspicuously snubbing Fatuma Dullo – the Senator whose shadow once loomed over his ambitions.
Dullo, Isiolo’s first elected female Senator in 2017 and re-elected in 2022, has been MRQ’s political conjoined twin: a URP-Jubilee veteran, Deputy Majority Leader, and chair of the Senate’s National Security Committee.
Her omission? A fox’s feint, signaling a desperate pivot from her orbit to UDA’s embrace, amid the by-election buzz for Isiolo South.
Yet, as at the fundraiser where elders rallied behind the late MP Tubi’s son, MRQ’s interjection landed like an uninvited storm in a tea ceremony – awkward, disruptive, and swiftly forgotten.
The room, sources whisper, hushed in bemused silence. Dulo’s erasure wasn’t strategy; it was severance from his sole lifeline, now tainted by her own feuds with Guyo – misogynistic barbs in June that drew NGEC’s ire and demands for apology.
In a county where women’s voices amplify amid FGM fights and malnutrition drives, MRQ’s snub reeks of patriarchal panic.
This is no declaration of war; it’s an obituary in installments. From wedding podiums to burials, MRQ haunts harambees like a ghost, omnipresent but impotent – visibility without viability, noise without narrative.
Guyo’s Silent Symphony: Why Lions Outlast Jackals
While MRQ ricochets through fundraisers chasing echoes, Guyo composes in silence.
Post-impeachment, he’s extended olive branches, unifying with Deputy James Lowasa, Woman Rep Mumina Bonaya, and defecting MCAs for a “unity front” against external meddlers – UDM whispers and neighboring agitators blamed for the chaos Initiatives like the Wezesha Vijana TVET Mashinani, training 100+ youth in vocational skills, and Ardhisasa’s rollout for land titling in Blocks 1-10, underscore his fox-like foresight.
Even amid payroll purges – 485 hires vetted against 250 irregularities – Dulo’s Senate probes yield no knockout blows, only highlighting Guyo’s transparency push.
Philosophically, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics posits virtue as the mean between excess and deficiency.
Guyo treads this mean: ambitious yet accountable, fierce yet forgiving. MRQ veers to excess – hasty, hubristic – deficient in the discipline that defines statesmanship.
2027’s Inevitable Verdict: Concrete Over Chatter
By 2027, Isiolo’s voters won’t parse impeachment transcripts; they’ll traverse tarmacked trails, sip from sustained boreholes, and tally bursary receipts.
Guyo’s alchemy will have gilded his mandate: a county where herders in Kinna no longer flee encroaching violence, thanks to ranger hires and grazing pacts. MRQ?
He’ll chase podiums, a cautionary verse in Isiolo’s ballad – a hyena that prowled for prey and returned with wounds.
In Machiavelli’s mirror, lions endure because they build; jackals fade because they bite. Isiolo needs no noisy savior. It has a quiet architect, forging prosperity from the sands. And in that forge, betrayers like MRQ are but sparks – brief, bright, and ultimately extinguished.
Disclaimer| The views and opinions expressed in the above piece are solely author’s very own
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