In Summary
- It’s like history is repeating itself with the ongoing war of words between the sons of the fathers.
In the early 1980’s Jaramogi Oginga Odinga seemed on the road to political rehabilitation; until he called founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta a land grabber.
It’s like history is repeating itself with the ongoing war of words between the sons of the fathers.
Cord Alliance presidential candidate Raila Odinga has kicked up a maelstrom with the campaign depicting his main rival in the race for State House, the Jubilee Coalition’s Uhuru Kenyatta, as a land grabber.
Raila’s father, the first vice president of independent Kenya turned pioneer opposition leader, had been denied all rights to public office since he was detained without trial by President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1969.
After occupying State House in 1978, President Moi sought to mend fences with some of the personalities that had fallen foul of the Kenyatta regime.
He appointed Mr Odinga chairman of the Cotton Lint and Seed Marketing Board. He also gave the nod for his return to politics.
Then Mr Odinga chose to explain at a public rally why he had fallen out with President Kenyatta.
He was for equitable access to land and special consideration for the needy, he said, while Kenyatta favoured the privileged few.
Headlines the following day quoting Mr Odinga calling the late President Kenyatta a ‘land-grabber’ had President Moi seeing red.
Mr Odinga’s path back to Parliament was blocked and he was again consigned to a political Siberia from which he was not to re-emerge until the return of multi-partyism a decade later.
More than another two decades, the son of Odinga and the son of Kenyatta are embroiled in a major battle for the presidency, with the land question a controversial issue.
The campaign was launched when Mr Odinga repeated an unverified, and most likely false, newspaper claim of a few years ago that the Kenyatta family owned land the size of Nyanza Province.
Uhuru hit back with a challenge to anyone who has evidence that he has grabbed land to take him to court; adding for good measure that it is Mr Odinga who has to answer for grabbing the Kisumu Molasses factory.
Into the melee waded Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo and the chairman of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission Mzalendo Kibunjia with cautions that the land issue would inflame tensions.
Mr Odinga remain unfazed, insisting that the land question cannot be swept under the carpet.
Indeed the rival campaign manifestoes give considerable play to land.
Both recognise that land is an emotive issue that has provoked conflict, and offer almost similar solutions.
But then Mr Odinga on the land issue seeks to exploit Mr Kenyatta’s Achilles Heel.
Nobody has accused Uhuru Kenyatta personally of being a land grabber.
Nobody has even bothered to quantify the Kenyatta family land, but it is taken as unchallenged fact that vast holdings stretching from the Coast to the Rift Valley form the base of the family fortune.
Uhuru Kenyatta has obviously been a direct beneficiary, but one could question whether the son must pay for the sins of the father.
Another legitimate question is how many generations back can issues of land ownership and land claims be pursued.
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