{UAH} Standard Digital News - Kenya : It's do-or-die for Raila Odinga as he moves towards the historic 2017 elections
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Standard Digital News - Kenya : It's do-or-die for Raila Odinga as he moves towards the historic 2017 elections
Opposition doyen Raila Odinga will meet his fate in 2017. That's when poetic justice will be done – and seen to be done. But my crystal ball hasn't told me— yet — what the outcome will be. Poetic justice is a concept in which virtue is either ultimately rewarded, or vice is punished.
Either way, the outcome is just. Which begs the question — what awaits Mr Odinga in 2017? He will be requited in 2017 if he's adjudged to have lived a "virtuous life." But he will be sanctioned if he's deemed to have led a "vicious life." Neither you, nor I — or Mr Odinga — knows the answer to this historic quest. But we know — 2017 is it for Agwambo.
Methinks Mr Odinga is aware the gods are calling. The man is entering the last stanza of his political life. That's why he must take care of unfinished business. We know that means tenancy in State House. He must avenge his father's Sisyphean struggle to the mountaintop. He must succeed where Jaramogi — the giant of Kenyan refuseniks — failed.
But Mr Odinga must also avenge his own "defeats" —first in 2007 at the hands of PNU leader Mwai Kibaki and in 2013 by Jubilee honcho Uhuru Kenyatta. That's why I sympathise with Mr Odinga — he carries more historical baggage than any of his contemporaries.
Therefore, 2017 will tell us whether he's cursed, or blessed. He must go for broke.
Mr Odinga is the master of self-reinvention. No one has done it better in Kenya's history. Even his political opponents admire his skill. Let me tell you what I think of Mr Odinga. If Noah's flood struck the earth again, and everything died, I believe Mr Odinga would crawl out from under a rock alive. Those who underestimate him do so at their peril.
I urge the "children" who aspire to high politicsto learn at his feet. We all have a ringside seat at history in the making. This is also true — although Mr Odinga "lost" two electoral contests, he has no equal in the political scene. I think President Kenyatta and DP William Ruto would agree.
This brings me to the "dialogue" and "referendum" rallies Mr Odinga has ginned up. No one saw it coming, except him. Which makes me wonder why the spy agencies were caught so flat-footed. It's not that there's anything illegal about political rallies. That's how the 2010 Constitution comes alive.
But given the contradictory responses by President Kenyatta and Ruto to the calls for dialogue, one must believe Kenya's spies were asleep at the switch, and didn't have the foggiest about Mr Odinga plans. The smart thing for Mr Kenyatta to have done — once Mr Odinga demanded dialogue — was to concede immediately and co-opt the initiative. I think near-sighted aides told him concession is a weakness.
It's bad advice that has Mr Kenyatta on the back foot. Just like he should take advantage of the terror and criminal attacks to fire his security chiefs — and fully commandeer the ship of state — Mr Kenyatta should agree to a sit-down with Mr Odinga.
I believe there are too many bad advisers – and mini-presidents – around Mr Kenyatta. He needs to stamp his authority on the state and quit sharing his executive power with minions and political concubines.
Only then can he meet Mr Odinga mano-a-mano in the arena of dialogue. If he doesn't, Mr Odinga will eat his lunch and evict him from State House in 2017. I've said it before — two rats can't live in one hole.
Let's focus on Mr Odinga alias Arap Mibei for a minute. After the debacle of ODM elections, Mr Odinga calmly left Nairobi for Beantown. He was a resident at Boston University's African Presidential Centre under the Rev Charles Stith, the one-time US ambassador to Tanzania. While there, Mr Odinga read widely and traversed the US teaching others, and being taught. I don't know many African ex-leaders with such a thirst for knowledge. I believe it's in Boston Mr Odinga reconnected with the nobler purposes ofpolitics. That's why I believe him when he says — with conviction — that only dialogue can save Kenya. But I also believe it will give him one last shot at redemption.
Let me end where I started. And I will be blunt. Mr Odinga will be too old in 2022 to run for office again. That's why 2017 is do or die.
This much is true — no one in Kenya has fought for democracy longer, and suffered more, than Mr Odinga. He finally accepted the 2007 and 2013 electoral results "defeats" even though he bitterly disputed them.
These are the man's virtues. Will the electorate reward him for them in 2017? Or will Kenyans decide that he should be history?
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