Very few heated exchanges are as intriguing and thought-provoking, as those pitting two learned friends against each other, like it happened in the case of lawyers Miguna Miguna and Makau Mutua.
On Wednesday night, Makau appeared on JKLive to discuss a variety of issues including the highly publicised alleged plot to assassinate Deputy President William Ruto.
While on the show, the US-based lawyer, who works as a Dean at Buffalo University, School of Law, argued that the DP had resorted to seeking public sympathy, using the claims, after exhausting all his other options.
"I think that is a laughable story that only a fool can believe. I think it is a strategic move, a kamikaze move by Ruto... You take those desperate acts when all other options are closed.
"It is the equivalent of putting one bullet in the chamber and firing the gun at your own head. It is a Russian roulette move. The intention, I think, was to split the people in Central Kenya...It is clear to me Ruto is spoiling for a fight," stated the scholar.
Mutua added that the DP's plot fell flat, since his senior aides organised it without his knowledge, which left him with only one option, to face his boss one on one.
His professional colleague Miguna Miguna, however, understood Mutua in a different way and somewhat disagreed with his assertions, that Ruto's murder plot might have originated from his own office.
"For someone who actually studied law, even though he has never practiced it, Makau Mutua's unrefined hypothesis on conspiracies to commit murder, resembles a dictator's toolbox," Miguna opened his argument.
"He posits that for an assassination plot to exist or be believed, the victim of the plot must die, first.
"Dead people don't file complaints at the police station and cannot testify against the perpetrators. If each time anyone complains of an assassination plot, the knee-jerk reaction from hypocrites like Makau Mutua is to launch attacks on the potential victims, Kenya will continue to pill long lists of unresolved political assassinations," continued Miguna.
Digital, Innovations and Diaspora Communications Secretary Dennis Itumbi has since been arrested (and then released) in connection with the assassination claims.
