Kenya Stockholm Blog

You have heard it before. That Raila Odinga, the ODM Presidential candidate, cannot be trusted. Raila has changed too many political Parties. Raila dumped former President Moi in the wake of Uhuru Project in KANU. Raila dumped Kibaki after saying “Kibaki Tosha”. Raila dumped Kalonzo Musyoka’s ODM-Kenya “because Kalonzo was popular”.

You have heard it before. Raila cannot lead because he is not circumcised. Raila wants to divide Kenya with his Majimbo system. Raila wants to incite a religious war in Kenya. Raila organized the 1982 coup attempt to try and seize power through illegal means. Raila has signed a Memorandum of Overstanding with the Muslims and other exhausted anti-Raila clichés that have blunted the political sensibilities of disco critics aligned to the septuagenarian Presidential candidate Mwai Emilio Kibaki.

Judging from the fabrication of documentary evidence to undermine Raila Odinga, the dirty abuses of Raila by opponents at political platforms in Kenya, the multiple shell organizations being set up by Kikuyu chauvinists in the name of Kibaki and the cheap propaganda web sites erected to “campaign for Kibaki”, Kikuyu chauvinists who believe that Kenya belongs to Kikuyus must be suffering from constant constipation at the prospect of the day they might wake up to the reality of “His Excellency President Raila Amolo Odinga”.

The political braggadocio of chauvinistic Kikuyu converts who adhere to the Gospel according to “The House of Mumbi” is fuelled by a deeply-seated and atavistic belief that since Kikuyus are the majority ethnic group in Kenya and since it is mostly the blood of Kikuyus which was spilled during the colonial revolution in which Mau Mau was on the frontlines, Kenya must at all times be led by a Kikuyu President as other ethnic groups scramble for the Vice presidency and other crumbs below the table.

This old-style school of thought undermines the numerical superiority of 41 ethnic groups in Kenya while it whittles the role other ethnic groups played in the anti-colonial revolution. Instead, it seeks to elevate Kikuyu nationalism (thinly camouflaged as “analysis”) in political debates at the expense of rationalism needed for a sober understanding of the real problems facing Kenya as a Nation.

For these ethnic chauvinists, it does not matter that Kenya has had two Kikuyu Presidents with the incumbent Kibaki emerging as a fraudulent and unprincipled crook whose regime is wallowing in a pool of corruption as the President maintains a thieving Mafia cartel that is answerable to nobody but themselves. How else does one explain the antics of Lucy Kibaki, the First lady, before she was sedated recently to bring order to State House?

KIKUYU CHAUVINISTS SHOULD BEGIN PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENTS
For Kikuyu chauvinists afraid of Raila Odinga, Moi’s Presidency was a big mistake which was corrected by Kibaki’s Presidency. For more than a decade after he inherited power following Kenyatta’s death, Moi had to remain the President because there was no alternative under a one Party dictatorship. After political pluralism, the former despot used the State machine to divide the opposition and rig elections until the regime was brought to a point where it had to go and Raila played a big role.

By then, Kikuyu chauvinists trusted Raila because he said “Kibaki Tosha” and the general picture of State House in a post Moi situation fitted well with the “House of Mumbi” perspective. Now that Raila is increasingly being seen as “The President in waiting”, the picture is blurred thus the haranguing linked to “Raila cannot be trusted” orchestras. 

Raila may have changed Parties but Kibaki has even abandoned parties like Democratic Party that stood by him in his quest for Presidency. Kibaki has abandoned Narc on whose back he rode to become President. Kibaki abandoned KANU that honoured him with the post of Vice president for ten years. The President’s new Party, PNU is so much in confusion that Kibaki has even failed to name his running mate so what are these chauvinists telling Wakenya?

For these Kikuyu braggadocios, the problem with a possible Raila Presidency is that an era will be born when any Kenyan can become President regardless of his or her ethnic group – cut or uncut. Raila’s presidency will check Kikuyu arrogance in the sphere of politics and destroy the myth that since Kikuyus are the majority ethnic group in Kenya, a Kikuyu will always be able to win an election at the Presidential level – Halelujah.

The defeat of Kibaki at the Referendum after he failed to deliver a new Constitution was just a pointer to defeats to come. Kikuyus voted as a block but lost the Referendum. Raila led the campaign under ODM and for Kikuyu chauvinists who have the capacity to think, the Kikuyu vote alone will not deliver the Presidency to Kibaki and so the votes needs to be combined with “scare tactics” which, in their small brains, might scare other communities to vote for Kibaki, a myopic strategy in deed.

Raila may or may not have led the coup but didn’t he pay with eight years in detention under solitary confinement before emerging from detention to forgive Moi who later cheated him before he destroyed the Uhuru Project by helping Kibaki to come to power? After Kibaki cheated on the MoU, should Raila have gone on retirement or should he have changed Professions to begin fishing Mbuta in Lake victoria? Raila might not be circumcised. But why not tell that to George Bush, Gordon Brown, Putin et al. By the way, has somebody checked if Chavez is circumcised so that I can be updated?     

Anti-Raila Kikuyu chauvinists want Kenyans to believe that if Raila wins the Presidency, he will destroy the Kikuyu economically, revenge for the ill treatment and suffering he underwent under Kibaki, marginalize the Kikuyu community the way other groups have been marginalized by Moi and Kibaki, fill State House (and other Kikuyu dominated top government positions) with Luos, Luhyas, Kales and so fourth.

If you ask me, the masses of Kikuyu workers, peasants, students and millions of unemployed Kikuyu youth who form the bulk of Wakikuyu should have nothing to fear because they are like millions of poor Kenyans suffering across the country under Kibaki.

It is the Kikuyu ruling class and their friends in business who are afraid of Raila. The problem with Kikuyu chauvinists spreading malice against Raila today is that they have deliberately refused to differentiate between the corrupt elite draining Kenya on the one hand and the poor Kikuyu masses on the other, the same poverty-stricken class that has nothing common with Kibaki and whose members are living side by side with other ethnic groups in slums across Nairobi and other regions.

Kikuyu chauvinists trumpeting “Raila cannot be trusted” hymns should begin to make psychological adjustments because from the look of things, the country seem to be heading towards a Raila Odinga Presidency under an ODM government. The big question will be how to change Kenya and at the moment, Majimbo seem to be booming as an option.

Okoth Osewe