Posts Tagged ‘Raila Odinga’
In Africa, we don’t come from bad to good and then better. Many times we come from bad to worse and then worst. So now Kenyans are saying founding President Jomo Kenyatta was bad and Daniel arap Moi, who took over from him was worse. And President Mwai Kibaki who took over from Moi, is worst.
So will they call back retired President Daniel arap Moi in the next General Election in 2012, now that we have run out of superlatives to describe Prime Minister and “President-apparent”, Raila Odinga? Indications are that if Moi decides on a come-back, Kenyans will be ready for him.
The Fear Factor
One reason they will do so is the plain old fear of the unknown. Moi , when he was President, used to urge Kenyans to always solve their problems by starting from the known and then going on to the unknown. He however disappointed Kenyans in so basic ways, not least important of them being bankrupting the country, that they were willing to start from the unknown by electing Mwai Kibaki as president.
Humiliation and Kibaki
And during the transition, no one was more pilloried, more humiliated than Moi even though he was still the president. In the streets, the song was the same from the Indian Ocean on one side of the country to the Great Lake Victoria on the other border, “All things are possible without Moi.” And amid the humiliation, Moi laughed and said, “You people are laughing today, but you will come calling for me one day!”
The retort of Kibaki and his supporters was to urge Moi to “Go home and watch how modern, efficient governments are run!” (See for example, the comments of the then Minister for Justice and Constitution Affairs Mr. Kiraitu Murugi, a staunch Kibaki supporter who recently expressed his support for Moi with an about-faced comment, ‘There are no permanent enemies in politics.”)
Disappointment
But hardly a year into Kibaki’s presidency Kenyans began to notice the same evils they had forced Moi out for were creeping back, this time magnified and multiplied many times over. Tribalism increased. Corruption and looting of public funds became open and normal. Impunity for those close to Kibaki and those in power became normal, too. And so on and so forth until you can turn over 100 pages!
Kenyans were back again in the streets with their familiar song and a new name, “Everything is possible without Kibaki!” But Kibaki had sung the same song with them and knew their strategies. He simply wasn’t prepared to be humiliated out of the comfortable State House. So he just “messed up” the election and before the infuriated Kenyans could blink, he had been sworn in as President by his friends and “learned friends.”
What was the result? Kenya is a subject of criminal investigations at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and we have a coalition government that doesn’t function. Disappointed Kenyans killed and maimed each other.And, Kenya, a shinning example of peace came close to being classified with the Sudan and Liberia and the like as a failed state. Kibaki , Kenyans said, is the worst. But who will replace him when his term ends in 2012?
Why Raila Can’t do?
Prime Minister, Raila Odiga would naturally have done so. But he has shown he cannot be trusted. First, he gave all the jobs to his tribesmen and women – including his sisters! Second, he is incoherent – only his friends know what he talks about. Apparently, he doesn’t know Kiswahili. And he doesn’t know English. We, who don’t speak Dholuo, only assume he knows his mother tongue because we hear him mumble something in it sometimes. In short, we don’t know what Raila knows. Or who he is. He is an unknown.
On the other hand, we know what Moi knows. He is the known. He speaks bad Kiswahili. And bad English. But we know what he talks about. He is the known.
By Muli wa Kyendo
If, you are in Kenya and have a secret to help your friend to become a president, don’t do it. If you do, remember that tomorrow, when he is the president, you will be his target for elimination. That is the wisdom that informs our political class.
When Kenyans were oppressed by the dictatorship of former president Daniel arap Moi, the media became the focal point for the campaign to remove him from power. The media galvanized the opposition and pressured them to unite under former Vice President Mwai Kibaki—a man who had tried many times before to become president and failed. The media dressed him up and shepherded him into power.
But who became the biggest enemy, to Mwai Kibaki, the president? The media!
Ever since coming into power Mwai Kibaki and his entire family have been at war with the media. Kibaki has, at every opportunity, brought in laws that are against the media. The wife, Lucy Kibaki, has even walked into newsrooms in the dead of the night and dismantled cameras and other equipment, slapping journalists she didn’t like. The culmination was the night attack of the Standard newspapers and Kenya Television Network (KTN, Kenya’s second largest media house) by hooded hooligans in 2006. They disabled broadcasting equipment and burned newspapers.
Last year, in the General Elections, the opposition, led by Mr. Raila Odinga, posed as the best alternative to the Kibaki regime. The media once again came out in Raila’s support. And even when he was “rigged out” by the Kibaki regime, the media stood by him, forcing Kibaki to agree to share power with Raila. Now Raila is the powerful Prime Minister.
And now that he is in power, Raila, too, has joined Kibaki to oppress the media. The new Media Bill which allows the government to dismantle equipment belonging to “hostile” media houses, and to open individual letters and intercept emails, was passed by the two men! And not surprisingly, the two have remained mum even when chaos occur in front of their noses.
The media will have to look elsewhere, not upon these two men, if they are to survive.
By Muli wa Kyendo
A few months ago, I said in Africa we are never bored because there are so many things happening in our Great Continent. Some of these are of such momentous importance that if they were happening in another continent, they would be “World Lead” news headlines. But we never bother because we don’t know when we are making history.
when was it that you heard of a cultural change—a whole community abandoning its ways and beliefs and adopting another? People may abandon their cultures one by one, but a n immediate total change of a community, I believe is a historical event, not only because it rarely happens, but because it has tremendous implications in all spheres of life. In Kenya, the last it happened is estimated to be in the 15th century, when a warring clan of the Maasai which was called Akavi, overran the surrounding communities forcing them to abandon their god, Mulungu or Murungu and worship the Maasai god, Ngai. Today, the communities, including the Akamba and Kenya’s largest tribe, the Kikuyu still worship Ngai. And even in the Christian churches, Ngai is still the god worshipped.
Today, we in Kenya are in the midst of another cultural change. Kenya’s second largest community, the Luo, are abandoning their culture of non-circumcision of boys. Studies have show that circumcised men are less likely to contract the dreaded Aids/HIV virus. Following this, Luos, young and old, are queuing at hospitals to be circumcised. Prominent Luo politicians, including Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga have led the cultural change campaign with the message: Change or we perish.
The unintended consequence will be that the Luos will have removed the biggest stigma which has stood between them and leadership of the country. Most other tribes in Kenya circumcise their boys (and even daughters) and an uncircumcised man is traditionally regarded as a boy who is unfit to lead. This prejudice stood between the late Vice President Oginga Odinga (the father of Raila Odinga) and the presidency of Kenya. Without that prejudice, Raila Odinga would today be Kenya’s President.
We are anxiously waiting to see what this cultural change will bring for the Luo community, for Kenya and even for Africa.
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