Let’s stop sabotaging Raila’s AU bid
Azimio la Umoja Coalition leader Raila Odinga.
Kenya is the land of the most obsequious political opportunists. Most of our political leaders, even many professional technocrats, could fit very well in Donald Trump’s American slavish and unthinking personality cult. It’s very sad to see grown people take complete leave of their senses and mental faculties.
I saw this firsthand in Azimio and Kenya Kwanza during the 2022 campaigns. Their loyalties are as fickle as the blowing wind – now this way, and the next minute the opposite direction. They don’t believe in anything. That’s partly why many have ganged up to sabotage Raila Odinga’s bid for Chairperson of the African Union Commission. Nothing drives them but unadulterated greed, selfishness, and mendacity.
They are the worst of the worst.
Largest rainmaker
Let me peel your eyes. We know the state is both the largest rainmaker and its facilitator in Kenya.
Most Kenyans know that a lot of moolah comes through the State. That’s why many will kill – sometimes literally – to be elected, even as an MCA, join the Executive, or be appointed to some innocuous political position. Even billionaires who have looted from the State in their positions and have entered their sunset years still fight to be appointed to some inconsequential board. All of this for “protection” from the caprice of the State, or the long arm of the law.
Being in the private sector may earn buckets of cash but doesn’t give you body armour from the State. That’s why during the last elections, the two most powerful individuals in Kenya were Kenya Kwanza’s William Ruto and Mr Odinga of Azimio. Sycophants and retinues of hypocritical self-seekers couldn’t even let the two visit a bathroom in peace.
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The endorsement and coattails of the two would guarantee election to office, or appointment to State positions should one or other prevail.
There was no shame in the game of the hangers-on. We saw them crowd Mr Ruto when he was declared President. But just as quickly, we saw many in Azimio shamelessly cross the floor and genuflect before President Ruto. Some were lucky but most have been left adrift to wallow in their own embarrassment. A sad sight. It’s the speed with which many left Mr Odinga that shocked me. Some have sheepishly come back after being shunned on the other side. However, what’s caused the biggest earthquake in Kenya was the announcement by Mr Odinga that he would gun for the Chairperson of the AUC.
Tectonic plates have shifted like the parting of the Great Rift Valley.
Acrimonious civil war
Some in Azimio have headed for the exits because they don’t see how they can survive there if Mr Odinga goes to Addis Ababa.
A low-level but acrimonious civil war simmers underneath in Azimio as possible successors to Mr Odinga position their artillery. Even in ODM, the key anchor in Azimio, succession battles loom as bigwigs stalk each other. Even so, as the historic magnitude of Mr Odinga’s assumption of the AUC job has sunk in, some of Azimio’s key lieutenants have had second thoughts. Several have now come out openly to oppose his bid for the job. Simply put, they can’t imagine themselves sans Mr Odinga in Kenya. They can see their political deaths on the horizon. Nay, some have even ordered political coffins. That’s because more than half of all politicians in Kenya owe their careers and election to office to Agwambo, the indomitable son of Jaramogi. He’s the centre of gravity of Kenya’s politics. President Ruto himself was once a political student of the man from Bondo.
That’s why there’s total panic among political mentees.
Political orphanage
Many in Azimio fear political orphanage. They believe their political opponents within Azimio or ODM will cannibalise them without Baba.
It’s a fight for their survival. Some, like the Mt Kenya group in Azimio, has started to retreat to their GEMA cocoons to plot their way out of the thicket and the gathering political clouds. In Kenya’s politics, the “tribe” is king. That’s why many groups are now seeking refuge under an ethnic skirt. Theirs is a double game. They want to sabotage Mr Odinga’s AUC bid even as they return to the “tribe”.
They are hedging their bets and don’t want to put all their eggs in one basket. They are determined to kill the AUC bid. Make no mistake about it. Although many of those trying to kill the AUC bid cloak it under the sappy rhetoric of keeping Mr Odinga in Kenya to check the government and keep the opposition strong, that’s a feint which only a fool will swallow.
They don’t really care a whit about Mr Odinga himself, or the health of the opposition. All they know is their meal ticket is headed to Addis, and that makes them see red. My view is if there’s no other Kenyan who can step up and anchor the opposition, then we are all a shameful lot.
Let successors start to raise their hands.
