{UAH} Power and betrayal: My fights with Moi, Uhuru and Kibaki - Politics - nation.co.ke
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2013
Power and betrayal: My fights with Moi, Uhuru and Kibaki
PPS | NATION President Kibaki (centre) Prime minister Raila Odinga (second left) retired president Daniel Moi and deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta during the funeral of tycoon and politician Gerishon Kirima in Murang'a on January 11, 2011. The political marriage between Mr Raila Odinga and President Daniel arap Moi ahead of the 2002 General Election was characterised by mind games, with both men playing their cards under the table.
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The political marriage between Mr Raila Odinga and President Daniel arap Moi ahead of the 2002 General Election was characterised by mind games, with both men playing their cards under the table.
Mr Odinga writes in his autobiography, The Flame of Freedom, that his co-operation with Mr Moi was aimed at bringing about legal and constitutional reforms, as Kenya entered a key transition stage.
Mr Moi, he says, wanted to have a comfortable majority in Parliament to carry out his legislative agenda.
However, it appears that Mr Odinga, who was Prime Minister from 2008 until this year's March 4 General Election, had hoped that his move would give him a fair chance of succeeding Mr Moi.
Unknown to him, however, the self-declared "professor of politics" wanted only to use him in a bigger succession plan, in which the star player was apparently the current President, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta.
On realising that there would be no democratic choice by New Kanu of Moi's successor, Mr Odinga began planning a different strategy.
"Our primary objective in merging with Kanu had been to ensure the introduction of the constitutional reforms that the country so badly needed. If that was not possible, it was necessary to break Kanu from within and end its 40-year stranglehold on the nation. I embraced these concepts as my mission," he writes.
But Mr Odinga also says the merger marked the beginning of a high-stakes game in the Moi succession, in which he became a marked man.
His powerful new position in the party (he was the secretary-general) and government made some people around President Moi uncomfortable and they began plotting to clip his wings. And the person they allegedly used, he says, was Mr Kenyatta, who was Moi's preferred successor.
Mr Odinga appears to blame, among others, Mr William Ruto, now Deputy President but then a fast-rising Kanu politician, for the woes that ended with Mr Odinga's quitting New Kanu.
It was Mr Odinga who, at a huge opposition rally in Uhuru Park, Nairobi, made the 'Kibaki tosha' declaration that cleared the way for Mr Mwai Kibaki's election in 2002 as the third President of Kenya.
In the book, Mr Odinga writes: "Moi had other plans. Several of his close confidants, presumably wary of my growing influence, clearly wanted to ensure I was stopped in my tracks – and they decided Uhuru was the man to do it." Mr Odinga says the would-be politician's main sponsors were Mr Ruto, Moi's close aide Joshua Kulei, his nephew Hosea Kiplagat and his son Gideon.
According to the book, Mr Ruto began trying to undermine Mr Odinga the day after Kanu and the National Development Party (NDP) had merged at Kasarani Sports Centre, Nairobi.
Mr Odinga describes how, after he went to take over as secretary-general at New Kanu's KICC offices in Nairobi, Mr Peter Gichumbi, who worked at the secretariat, went to him with interesting information about someone who had visited the office ahead of him and had told Mr Gichumbi who the real directors of the party would be. Mr Gichumbi, Mr Odinga says, had been at the secretariat since Jaramogi Oginga Odinga's Kanu days, but the visitor apparently did not know this.
The road to the merger, writes Mr Odinga, began when he publicly accepted Mr Moi's 1997 election victory. Mr Odinga said he extended the hand of co-operation to "all parties committed to reforms, in the belief that the artificial divide which has caused untold suffering to ordinary Kenyans shall be bridged in the interest of peace, stability, progress and national development."
Soon after, he writes, Mr Moi approached him through former Eldoret North MP Reuben Chesire.
"I was sitting in our office in Kisumu when, out of the blue, one of Moi's confidants, Reuben Chesire, reached me by telephone." Mr Chesire told Mr Odinga that Moi wanted to see him and "I responded that I would get back to him after consultations."
Mr Odinga says that, after consulting with former Kisumu Town MP Job Omino, they agreed to attend a meeting at Mr Moi's Kabarak home in Nakuru, where they were taken by Mr Chesire the following day.
"Moi was civil and relaxed and welcomed us to a breakfast of boiled maize, sweet potatoes, eggs, bread and tea," says Mr Odinga. But at some point, Mr Moi asked Mr Chesire to leave the room.
"After he had gone, Moi told me that in future I should deal with Mark Too, not Chesire. I was somewhat surprised but thus it was that Too became the linkman in a relationship that would have far-reaching implications for Kenya."
Mr Too was a Nominated MP and an Assistant Minister in the Office of the President.
The book portrays a calculating President Moi, seizing Mr Odinga's offer to boost Moi's majority in Parliament and execute his succession plan, in which the latter did not feature. But this was to backfire spectacularly as, unknown to Moi, Mr Odinga had his own agenda.
With 107 seats to the opposition's 103, Kanu had only a four-seat majority and was vulnerable in Parliament.
Mr Odinga says Mr Too also took Mr Michael 'Kijana' Wamalwa to Mr Moi. Mr Wamalwa, Mr Odinga recalls, also agreed to co-operate but he faced resistance from his party.
After consultations with his party members, Mr Odinga prepared a strategy paper titled, 'NDP's Position on Co-operation Among Political Parties and Reforms'. The party wanted to break the political impasse that was preventing constitutional reforms and solve other national challenges, including corruption.
A joint think-tank comprising Mr Titus Naikuni, Mr Nicholas Rateng Ogego, Mr Charles Abwodha, Prof Henry Mwanzi, Dr Davy Koech, and Dr Odhiambo Mbai was set up to harmonise the policies of the two parties, which merged on March 18, 2002, at Kasarani. Mr Odinga dissolved his party and joined Kanu, which was renamed New Kanu, as secretary-general.
He was appointed Minister for Energy. Three of his allies were also appointed, Dr Adhu Awiti becoming Minister for Planning and Mr Peter Odoyo and Mr Orwa Ojode assistant ministers.
On the visitor to KICC who had met Gichumbi, Mr Odinga recalls: "That visitor was Eldoret North MP Ruto, one of Moi's favourite acolytes. Determined no doubt to keep me under tight control, he had visited and, evidently unaware of Gichumbi's and my close and historical connection, instructed him on who would have which offices.
A large office for Ruto's own use would be made by knocking through two adjacent offices, he said. He also made it clear to Gichumbi that, regardless of my election, he and Kenyatta would be the real masters at Kanu headquarters. Gichumbi's loyalties lay elsewhere and, from that day on, he kept me permanently updated on the activities of Messrs Ruto and Kenyatta."
Mr Odinga says he put together the Rainbow Alliance, which comprised his former NDP allies and people in New Kanu who had felt slighted by Mr Moi's choice of successor. He brought together Prof George Saitoti, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, Mr Katana Ngala and Mr Kalonzo Musyoka.
To try and pressure Mr Moi into allowing a democratic choice of the party's presidential candidate, he says, they all declared their interest in the job. But Mr Mudavadi and Mr Ngala, both of whose fathers had had close ties with Mr Moi, later returned to the Kanu fold. "Musalia called me and told me he was throwing in his lot with Moi but said he hoped to use his position to facilitate dialogue," writes Mr Odinga.
He says the idea of presenting a candidate from each region was to foster popular support for the Rainbow Alliance in the hope that the show of unity and strength would persuade Mr Moi to back down from his "ill-advised plan" to push for Uhuru.
"All the same, I knew Moi, and I knew this was a long shot. Needless to say I had other plans in mind should our objective not be realised," writes Mr Odinga.
And that is how Mr Odinga moved into the Liberal Democratic Party and went into an alliance with Mr Kibaki, Mr Wamalwa and Mrs Charity Ngilu's National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), to form the National Rainbow Coalition, which went on to win the 2002 elections.
Mr Odinga writes that Mr Moi's decision to back Mr Kenyatta had seriously divided the opposition, especially in central Kenya. "Moi had pulled a masterstroke with Uhuru's nomination and many among the Kikuyu elite fell on it with glee, seeing the possibility of a return to power."
Mr Odinga says he decided to sacrifice his own ambitions and back Mr Kibaki to stem the tide. And on October 14, 2002, at a huge rally at Uhuru Park, Mr Odinga made the famous 'Kibaki tosha' declaration that changed Kenya.
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