Writer got it wrong on Raila

By Joe Ombuor
Nguli’s vapid argument that Prime Minister Raila Odinga shot useful passengers in his ODM vessel en route to the Supreme Court assisted defeat by Jubilee is not propped by any logic.
He cites Wiliam Ruto among the useful passengers Raila shot, yet it is in common knowledge that Ruto was the first project identified to stop the PM’s march to State House, soon after the bungled 2007 elections won resoundingly by Raila but shamelessly handed to Kibaki amid unprecedented bloodshed.

Ruto did not disappoint. Disgruntled and bitter that he was not rewarded adequately for leading his Kalenjin herd almost en masse to ODM, he played ball and made maximum use of weapons put at his disposal to bring down his party leader. The Mau Forest issue that Raila was tricked to champion was among these weapons. He even raised funds in the guise of benefitting the victims, funds whose fate remains mysterious to this day.
Nguli is quiet about other passengers he claims Raila shot in his titanic ODM. But it is not difficult for a keen reader to pick the likes of Musalia Mudavadi, Najib Balala and Charity Ngilu, all whom jumped out of Raila’s ship citing various reasons. The truth of the matter is that they were pulled out by Raila’s nemesis (read the powers that be) with oodles of money to ensure the PM’s vessel was not heavy enough to stand the tempests blowing it off the course of State House. While Balala and Ngilu did not succeed well enough in dividing the votes of their communities against ODM and Raila as intended, Mudavadi did, all along posing to be contesting the presidency. Eugene Wamalwa was conscripted to assist him. Mudavadi remains the most useful ‘project’ after Ruto for Jubilee’s “victory”.
It is not true, as Nguli argues that Raila wanted to be president against all odds without considering his friends. The truth of the matter is that Ruto ceased to be his friend long ago for purely selfish reasons while Mudavadi, Balala, Ngilu and even Joe Nyagah whom he salvaged from political demise to become a minister followed suit. Mudavadi too was pulled by Raila from political hole after he was dumped following his political debacle in the run up to 2002 elections.
My advise to Nguli and those of his ilk is that it is foolhardy to discredit a leader for choosing to put the country first. That is what Raila did in 2008 and has repeated in 2013 after realizing the political playing field is tilted against him by the powers that be. Raila remains a great leader in spite of what his detractors may say. Such leaders come once in decades.
Evidence was adduced in court that Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) was deeply steeped in irregularities during which some of Raila’s votes were shifted to bolster a shaky Uhuru. The Supreme Court’s game was such that Kenyans might never know the truth, just as was the case in 2007.The court disallowed evidence. Did Nguli and those who think like him not see that?
What happened in a brief space of five minutes at 5pm on March 30 2013 was, contrary to Nguli’s belief, a clever formula for the country to move on without free, fair and democratic elections into which colossal tax payers’ money had been pumped.