How MICHUKI stopped RAILA, (Miguna Miguna’s book)

The Kenyan DAILY POSTPolitics01:33

Wednesday July 11,2012 - At ODM’s first meeting at the pentagon house after the KICC fiasco, it was unanimously resolved that we would resort to peaceful mass action until Kibaki accepts defeat and relinquishes power. But it was agreed that the newly constituted Technical Team (which was made up mainly of former strategy team members) would meet later and map out a comprehensive SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats) analysis on mass action and report within a day to the ODM pentagon.

The meeting agreed that by blatantly rigging the presidential election, Kibaki had declared war, and executed a civilian coup d’état against the popular will of the Kenyan people. In response, many felt that we needed to take the war to Kibaki’s doorstep. We knew that Kibaki and his PNU alliance controlled the coercive arms of government –the police, the intelligence and the Military.

But force alone wasn’t enough. History is replete with lessons of mighty military forces being humbled by ragtag formations. As a student of history and politics, I believed that Kibaki’s regime will be forced to relinquish power.

We resolved that Raila should declare himself president and prepare to be sworn in at Uhuru Park within hours. This suggestion elicited heated debate, with those opposed, warning about treason charges. Treason, those of us who supported that idea insisted, couldn’t be preferred against the people; it was the people who had, and who would inaugurate Raila as their president.

The majority of the room felt that most Kenyans were prepared to rise up against Kibaki’s civilian coup.

Salim Lone, Kibisu Kabatesi and I prepared a statement declaring Raila president. It was around 3.30pm. We had summoned the media to the Pentagon House. The consensus was that the Narok North MP elect and octogenarian, William Ntimama, not Raila, was best suited to read the statement. Firstly, he supported this option more than any other senior member of ODM. Secondly, he was elderly and the feeling was that Kibaki would be reluctant to haul such an elderly man to jail.

My view, however was that as a person whose victory was being snatched, Raila should have been courageous enough to lay claim to the victory. I also felt Raila’s voice would have galvanised the country against the injustice being perpetuated against them by Kibaki. This was no time for half- hearted shadow boxing.

At 3.45pm, just as Ntimama began to read the prepared statement, the lights went off. As the media scrambled to switch on their backup generators, an announcement was beamed through all TV and radio stations: Michuki, the then the Internal Security minister had imposed a total ban on live broadcasts. On hearing this (even before determining whether or not the order was legally binding), the local media started packing up. It was about 4.50 pm, when there was a second announcement on the TV screens: Kibaki was due to be sworn in at State House that same day, at 6pm. We were crestfallen. We had been outmaneuvered by smart Michuki!

At about 5.30 pm, the ECK chairman Samuel Kivuitu and his fellow commissioners came  on Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) TV channel and formally declared  that Kibaki had won the presidential election by 4,578,034(46.4%) to Raila’s 4,352,993(44.1%).

Tomorrow will carry more excerpts of how Kibaki’s men continued to outsmart their ODM colleagues…..

The Kenyan DAILY POST