What inspires such profound fear of Raila?

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By PHILIP OCHIENG
Posted  Saturday, September 8  2012 at  18:42

IN SUMMARY

• It is on the cards that what inspires the fear is not Mr Odinga as such but only his community.
• The ruffianism with which his ragamuffins defend him can only raise anxiety in others that, when he ascends to ultimate power, they will behave exactly like Attila’s Huns on this side of the Rhine.
• Mr Odinga should know that every crime his followers commit in his name can only play him into the hands of his political enemies and vitiate his candidacy.

What is it about Raila Odinga that so scares the leaders of other ethnic communities?

How is it that to frustrate Mr Odinga’s presidential ambition is the only “ideology” that the leaders of those other communities know?

As compatriot Joshua Gituma put it (in a letter in the Nation on Wednesday), “what seemed to create a sense of unity in the alliance is their determination to prevent [the] ODM [Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement] from winning. Tribalism plays a major role here.”

Tribalism, to be sure. But tribal fear cannot alone explain this profound peer antipathy for the Luo leader.

For Kalonzo Musyoka, William Ruto, Uhuru Kenyatta, Musalia Mudavadi, Eugene Wamalwa — the whole kit and caboodle — are also tribal leaders.

Yet Kenya does not witness any kind of “G” ranged against those individuals singly.

Our ears are never deafened by any cacophony from a G7 or G40 whose sole mission is to prevent Charity Ngilu’s or James Kiyiapi’s or Mutava Musyimi’s conquest of State House.

It is on the cards that what inspires the fear is not Mr Odinga as such but only his community.

The ruffianism with which his ragamuffins defend him can only raise anxiety in others that, when he ascends to ultimate power, they will behave exactly like Attila’s Huns on this side of the Rhine.

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Mr Odinga should know that every crime his followers commit in his name can only play him into the hands of his political enemies and vitiate his candidacy.

Already some are using the roughing up of Miguna Miguna as evidence that, in power, Mr Odinga will deploy an unruly mob of Luo youths to terrorise Kenya.

Ours is not the politics of civilised men and women. So, although his adversaries know that the Prime Minister does not have such an intention, it does not deter them from deploying suborned witnesses to spread the propaganda that, from State House, Mr Odinga intends to unleash the Luo against other Kenyans.

Already he is being accused of having personally organised the ugly scenes we have recently seen in Nakuru, Kisumu and Mombasa, where goons uttering his name have descended upon Mr Miguna and thwarted his attempts to promote his book.

In this way, they only help to celebrate a dubious intellect who – if left alone – may enter the history books only as a footnote.

I am told by those close to Mr Odinga that he rarely takes advice – not even from the many “advisers” in his office. Nevertheless, as a Luo, a Kenyan and a well wisher, I feel I owe him some advice.

It is that he has some very good brains both in his PM’s office and at the ODM headquarters as well as at the grassroots nationwide.

He should send them to work both on how to set right the damage that has been done by the misguided enthusiasm of his followers and to work out a new stratagem for selling both him and the ODM outside Nyanza.

As I pointed out here recently, Mr Odinga has admirers among all our ethnic communities.

Why does the ODM seem unable to identify these admirers, gauge them, bring them on and use them as the party’s beacons in all ethnic landscapes?

Hasn’t the ODM learned any lesson from the disaster that can befall a party whenever it invests too many strategic resources in dubious ethnic characters?

The apparent value of allying with such good-for-nothings is that they make you seem popular among “adversarial” communities.

But Mr Odinga’s hands-on style — which is why his adversaries fear his candidacy so deeply — is what can galvanise support from the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Mijikenda, Kamba and other important communities.

But he can succeed only if he uses respectable individuals. He will come a cropper if he persists with hustlers as his ethnic advisers.

ochiengotani@ke.nationmedia.com