Raila should be wary of merchants of impunity
By MAKAU MUTUA
Posted Saturday, July 14 2012 at 17:50
Posted Saturday, July 14 2012 at 17:50
Some people hate him with a passion. Many worship him as though he were a deity. Yet others are sceptical.
Virtually everyone has a strong opinion about him. No one can ignore him. That’s because he’s the centre of gravity of Kenya’s politics.
But he’s ageing now. The question is whether he’ll make it to the mountaintop this time, which could be his last.
He’s surrounded by rent-seekers and reformers, each with an agenda. Which begs the question: who will win in the pivotal struggle for the soul of Raila Amolo Odinga?
Jaramogi’s son
Will Jaramogi’s son deliver Kenya to the New Canaan, or will he be waylaid by the merchants of impunity? Will he see like a giraffe?
A giraffe sees far into the distance. The animal doesn’t suffer visual myopia. It can see beasts of prey far into the horizon.
This allows the giraffe to plan and plot its security and survival. For several decades, PM Odinga has exhibited these cunning and strategic qualities.
He was one of the key pillars that brought the long reign of Kanu and former President Daniel arap Moi crushing. He’s the one who killed Kanu.
It wasn’t without a heavy personal cost to self and family. No other living Kenyan has spent more time in political detention.
He – and others – thinks he was robbed in the 2007 elections. But he bounced back. But it’s not all been peaches and cream for Mr Odinga. He’s fallen off the reform wagon on several occasions.
He’s made several political alliances with unsavoury characters. He was even a minister in Mr Moi’s Kanu government. He merged NDP with Kanu.
I know some people claim that he penetrated Kanu to “destroy it from within.” I’ve never bought that argument. It’s true that was the outcome, but I don’t believe it was the motive going in.
He’s been duped to appoint several charlatans and egomaniacs for senior advisers. Why, pray, did he appoint Miguna Miguna as a senior aide? My point is that Mr Odinga isn’t an angel. He’s made mistakes. That’s the nature of politics.
But Mr Odinga’s “sins” are neither fatal not congenital. It’s true some of them are jarring, but they didn’t “hurt” Kenya. He hasn’t committed gross human rights violations.
There’s no evidence he’s been caught with his hand in the public till. The man is a patriot. It’s true he’s ambitious, but that’s a good thing.
The balance of his life has been lived toiling in the vineyards of struggle. There is no — and I repeat no — politician in Kenya today who has sacrificed more for the freedoms and liberties Kenyans enjoy.
Mr Odinga stands heads and shoulders above his competition as a reformer. But there’s a fierce struggle for his political soul today.
This is what I see. Kenya has a bright future. But only if we live faithfully by implementing the new Constitution.
We can’t mutilate it — the way MPs are doing — and prosper. We must cleanse the political and bureaucratic state of thieves, murderers, rapists and merchants of impunity.
Change is painful
Mark my words — no one has changed the world without a real struggle. Change is painful. Kenya will not transition from the old corrupt order to a new dispensation without pain.
This means we must excise the cancer from politics and the State. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga is already doing so in the Judiciary.
Can Mr Odinga follow suit in the Executive? Is he going to be “the man” — the chosen one?
I am afraid Mr Odinga faces long odds. That’s because he’s surrounded by many vultures from the old order. They want to enslave him as a condition for supporting his quest for State House.
They are pressing him to enter into alliances with not-so-clean people. He’s been told to coddle the merchants of impunity if he wants the ultimate prize.
The old order — the one that detained him — wants to choke the reformer out of him. These are “soul-snatchers.” They are determined to “steal his reformist soul”. It’s the only way the merchants of impunity can survive the new Constitution – by killing it.
They want to use Mr Odinga to kill Kenya’s future and the new order. This is the question of the moment — does Mr Odinga have it in him this late in his life to resist these “dream snatchers?”
I am sure he can see the finish line to State House. Does the finish look so tantalising close that he might make some unfathomable compromises to get there? Would this make his seducers irresistible?
I have a warning for Mr Odinga. You must always dance with the one you brought to the party. How you get there will determine how you govern. No “ifs,” “ands”, “or “buts.” As they say, the company you keep defines you — it’s your identity.
Several weeks ago, I resorted to the Bible to sound a warning to Mr Odinga. I quoted Mark 8:36 — “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
That’s the question with which Mr Odinga is faced. He’s now in his seventh decade on this earth. He’s largely lived a life of virtue.
To be human for sure — and therefore with many errors — but a positive life on balance. The corpus of his reformist work is there for all Kenyans to see. He mustn’t sell his soul.
Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC.
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