Let's Not Put the Burden of Peace on Raila Odinga
What
you hear is that this was arguably Raila Odinga's ‘turn to eat’ in Kenya’s
presidential elections. This was his last shot at the top job, but once again
he lost to Uhuru Kenyatta. Odinga quickly cried foul and rejected the result,
claiming the election had been rigged. You also hear that Kenya's stability now
depends on whether Mr. Odinga will channel his rejection "peacefully"
through the courts or call his supporters onto the streets, with potentially
violent consequences, as he did after the 2007 poll. This is a lie. The truth is this:
Raila Odinga contested in an election in 2007 he won that election but Mr. Mwai
Kibaki (incumbent then) refused to concede defeat leading to a bloodbath that
swiftly took and ethnic turn beating the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu nations over
accumulated injustices over land resource occupation and control. Raila's
supporters protested the theft of votes in Luo Nyanza and parts of Nairobi and
the police used excessive force to contain them leaving behind horror and
devastation. In 2017 Raila Odinga contested in an election whose credibility
remains questionable; he pointed out a number of anomalies and called on the
electoral body (IEBC) to comprehensively deal with matters raised before
declaring the results but the IEBC would hear none; it went on (clearly through
state coercion) to hurriedly declare Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner. Mr. Odinga
has since not gone to court to contest the results despite pressure from almost
every quarter to do so but also he has not called for any mass action in the
country. It is therefore, not right to peg the peace of Kenya or lack of it on
Mr. Odinga. The truth is that there are millions of Kenyans out there who feel
cheated once again and are pressing for justice; not all of them are supporters
of Mr. Odinga, anyway.
Let's Not Put the Burden of Peace on Raila Odinga
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
August 14, 2017
Rating:

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