Fruits of Raila sweat return to haunt his bid

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Updated 2 hrs 11 mins ago

By Oscar Obonyo

Prime Minister Raila Odinga may be miffed by political rivals now riding on the crest of what he so gallantly fought for to realise democratic space and freedom of expression, to discredit his own presidential bid.  

The recently published book Peeling Back The Mask by his former aide Miguna Miguna, in particular, has handed rivals fodder to fault his reform record.

And some of the prickly criticisms have come from the most unexpected direction – diehard pro-establishment politicians of former regimes, who threw in everything to stop the reform wheels.

Raila’s key challengers for presidency, including Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, have since termed his reform credentials as “fake”. And Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi has equated the PM to Brazilian soccer legendary, Pele – euphemism for old glory that no longer counts.

For a man who pushed so hard for reforms and got jailed for a decade in the process, is Raila a victim of his valour? Isn’t the freedom of expression Miguna has used to pen his book and paint him in negative light, a result of his own sweat?

Liberation fight

But Safina party leader Paul Muite argues it is wrong to measure the second liberation struggle in terms of individuals being victims or beneficiaries. Everybody, says the lawyer who teamed up with the PM in the struggle, should take current developments in their strides.

 “We knew all along that a Constitution was not an end in itself, but a means to the end that guarantees quality of life and democratic space,” says Muite.

The issue of corruption, he adds, is one that leaders must be held accountable for. According to him, Jomo Kenyatta’s Government planted this seed of corruption with retired President Moi’s perfecting the vice. And during the shared Government of Kibaki and Raila, it has been at an all-time high. 

While saluting the PM’s reform credentials, Ikolomani MP Bonny Khalwale faults Raila for ignoring other players in the struggle. As a university student, Khalwale says his studies were discontinued owing to pro-reform student riots. Musalia’s father, then Local Government Minister, Moses Budamba Mudavadi, only reinstated him following intervention.

“With regard to the PM’s decision not to take legal action over Miguna’s book, he has proved that allegations in the book are not entirely untrue,” says Khalwale.

The MP, who is personally mentioned in the text for receiving financial support from Raila’s ODM party, now concedes that Miguna’s assertion about the Ikolomani by-election are indeed true. Previously, Khalwale has publicly bragged of having “floored Raila”.  

But describing Raila as a champion of the rights in our Constitution, his advisor on legal affairs Paul Mwangi says the PM has “accepted to bear the hurt of defamation, rather than take action that may discourage advancement and expansion of the field of these rights”.

In essence, Mwangi is saying Raila has accepted to take the flak for the sake of upholding gains of the second liberation struggle.

The Prime Minister, says Mwangi, acknowledges that abuse is a part of enjoyment of basic human rights.  “The exercise of any liberty carries with it the danger that it shall be abused. This is actionable in almost all instances but for where the abuse occurs in the process of the scrutiny of a public official,” says the PM’s official.

Kenya’s hope

To others, though, Raila is not just an individual, but a brand and a symbolic banner of the reform struggle onto which the hope of Kenya is inscribed. 

“He is our history, which we cannot wish away. He embodies the tree of fruits of democracy, good governance, political creativity, equity, and nationhood – a tree that has been irrigated for decades by his blood and that of his peers – alive and dead,” reacts Eric

Oseno, a governance consultant with Abeingo Group. Oseno equates Raila to a player who has broken many barriers of political culture to design a garment of politics whose fashion the world now celebrates.

 “Isn’t it odd that we now want to throw patches at this garment just when Kenyans want to wear it. That we want to shame and place beneath the feet of anti-reformers Raila’s reform credentials whose aroma and taste are on almost every Kenyans glands.”

Asserts Muite: “There are no doubt Raila remains a reformer, and a key player in the struggle, but even as a reformer he must be held accountable.”