When Apple Inc under Steve Jobs developed iCloud, it envisaged a world where information is not kept in the traditional storage devices like the flash drives and so on, but rather at a remote location where its accessible from anywhere that internet is available.
Information in the iCloud age is described as stored in the “cloud”. What iCloud represents therefore is ubiquity and omnipresence.It’s about intangibility, which is akin to having the people’s reformist aspirations stored in the “cloud” where the Kenyan conformist machinations cannot touch or tamper with.
Like iCloud, Raila Odinga is about invisibility; he is an idea that though intangible is intricately intertwined within the hearts, hopes and aspirations of Kenyans.
Raila’s iCloudabilty is about the invincibility of a man with the tenacity and unrivalled staying power who had the audacity to give up his youth to advance the pan-African agenda that millions yearned for at independence, but which like a receding mirage Kenyans soon learned was not forthcoming decades after Uhuru.
The sound of the bullets, the army of thousands, the cans of teargas, the monopoly of a party, the dictatorship of a rogue leader- none of that scared him; but like Ronaldo, he kept his eyes on the ball, his determination never ceasing, his convictions never compromising, and his hopes never subsiding.
This is because he knew that like with iCloud, he was only “a gadget” which was part of a network that represented the Kenyan aspirations for which he had burdened himself to shoulder and process- and that even though they would target “the gadget”- his letter and spirit was safe in remote locations- encrypted, stored and saved in the network of hearts and minds of millions.
It is therefore no surprise that the state machinery of successive governments has for decades been deployed and dedicated to contain him- ceaselessly, but they have all come to naught.
In fact on the contrary, it is these fascist manoeuvres that have been the fodder on which his political constituency has fed, expanded and grown upon.
This is because they failed to realise that the tangible Raila can be detained, but the intangible that he stands for would only be contained through substantive counter-arguments.
The passage of time and virus invasion hasn’t made his ideas to dissipate, and that’s why Raila the iCloud continues to hover above the skies of his opponents in the race in terms of modernity in ideas and foresight in economic and infrastructural policy.
That explains the iCloud idea about him which denotes versatility and flexibility, and that’s why like an evolving idea; he’s continued to embody the mantra of change and reform in his 2 decades as MP.
Raila’s belief in a just, liberated, free and democratic society is remotely stored within the hearts and minds of the millions who in 2007 gave him an overwhelming mandate and in a few months, the people’s choice is once again on the verge of sprinting to the house on the hill- this time at a record wider margin.
Just like iCloud is about the culmination of a 21st C information age, so is the Raila phenomenon which is an agenda about the realization of a dream- the inevitability of an idea whose time has come.
The annals of Kenya’s history has it well documented that since the 2002 Kibaki Tosha declaration, Raila has continued to morph into an insurmountable political juggernaut.
The political formation that he commands has responded to his enemy fire with unequal, superior and disproportionate firepower and show of force that has cleared any obstacle that has popped up in its sector of fire as he soldiers on in his people’s revolutionary journey.
Ladies and gentlemen join me in embracing the technologically sophisticated iCloud age of Raila Amollo Odinga, the undisputed leader of the Reform Movement in Kenya.
Sospeter Otieno is a freelance columnist, activist and blogger who lives in the United States
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