By PMPS and Digital Reporter
Prime Minister Raila Odinga visits Nyandarua Thursday to mobilise
support for his presidential bid and will visit the family of the late JM
Kariuki.
Raila’s visit comes just days after his rival Musalia Mudavadi of
UDF pitched tent in the area and lobbyied for votes.
But the two politicians carry different
messages. While there, Mudavadi said the country can enjoy peace and continue
to defend the same by their votes in the forthcoming general election.
Mudavadi who decamped from ODM to UDF says the March 2013 general
election is a test that the country needs to deal with evils of tribalism,
insecurity, inflation and youth unemployment threatening national cohesion and
peaceful stability.
In Nyadarua tour, Mudavadi was accompanied by MPs Jeremiah Kioni,
Nderitu Muriithi, Bonni Khalwale, former Trade Minister Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi, and
a section of civic leaders led by chairman of Nyandarua County Council Paul
Njihia Wangungu,
But Raila is linking his visit to the ideals of JM Kariuki
and his vision for social justice in Kenya.
Said Raila : “In the 1974 General Election, the late J.M Kariuki
ran a campaign for the then Nyandarua North Constituency, focusing on social
justice, education and health, land and national unity among other
issues.”
Raila repackaged JM’s salient points aheda of his visit. On Social
Justice, J.M talked of the need for a system that ensures“every Kenyan, man,
woman and child is entitled to a decent and just living” as a birthright... not
a privilege.”
On Education and Health, J.M lamented that “Schools and health centres are unevenly
spread out in the nation – both in quality and quantity.”
“We could ask how many schools and health centres we have started
in Turkana; in Samburu; in Maasai and other areas. We could further ask how
many children go to schools in those areas and how many ever reach high
schools, and where. A comparison of the birth rate and the death rate in those
areas clearly reveals the need to better the health services in those areas.”
On Land, he said:
“One of the glaring injustices of the
colonial era was the virtually unrestricted settler-ownership of tracts and
tracts of land amid a sea of land-hungry masses of indigenous people with
either nothing, or fragmented plots for subsistence farming...The ownership of
thousands and thousands of acres, and in some cases miles, by the settlers
greatly inspired an undying and unquenchable determination of the African
peoples to regain the lands in the hands of the colonial settlers. The Africans
considered such ownership fundamentally wrong and intolerable and unjust...
“It is therefore unquestionably clear that the determination with
which we fought and the death of many people of Kenya was not aimed at a mere
change-over or substitution in ownership. It was more fundamental than that.
Such ownership was socially and morally unjust and unacceptable. It was wrong
then. It is socially unacceptable and unjust today. It is wrong now. I believe
firmly that substituting Kamau for Smith; Odongo for Jones and Kiplangat for
Keith does not solve what the gallant fighters of our Uhuru considered an
imposed and undesirable social injustice.
In the wake of sharp need for land, a few people have gone in full
force to purchase and or acquire tracts of land previously held by settlers.
Titles have been issued to a few men; their wives and their children. The price
of the land has risen meteorically. Land use has been minimum as many people
have bought land for prestige and speculative purposes.
Overwhelming numbers of our people are
without money; have no hope of getting a fair deal, and organised groups have,
not infrequently, been out-manouvred by those with influence, connections and
money. The situation has been disquieting. What should we do?
As J.M mounted this campaign, he had been banned by the Government
from addressing public rallies for his own campaigns. He campaigned in
Nyandarua North through pamphlets distributed by his wife Nyambura and other
supporters. During that period, J.M retreated to Nakuru to help a friend, Mark
Mwithaga with his campaigns. But in the end, J.M won the Nyandarua North seat
by 16,000 votes against closest rivals’s 3,000 or 4,000. The following year,
J.M was assassinated.
On National Unity he said:
“Kenya is one nation from the waters of the Indian Ocean to those
of Lake Victoria, from Namanga to Moyale. The highest goal for any true Kenyan
is national unity. We should not only preach it, but practice it.”
Raila in his tour of Nyandarua County will pay a visit to
the family of J.M Kariuki and lay a wreathe at his grave in Gilgil.
The PM will begin his two day tour of the County with a stop in
Kinangop to visit Mukami Kimathi, widow of freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi and to
meet some Mau Mau fighters.
Raila will later visit Nyambura Kariuki at the J.M home in Gilgil
and later travel to Ol Kalao to open the renamed J.M Kariuki (Ol Kalao)
District Hospital. He will later address a public baraza.
On Friday, the PM will travel to Dol Dol and Nanyuki for public
rallies.
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