Wakili Donald Kipkorir is wrong on several accounts.
By G Oguda
Raila Odinga does not deserve the presidency by virtue of his heritage nor because of concessions his father, Jaramogi, made with Kenyatta I. Kenya is not a monarchy and the presidency is not anyone’s birthright.
Raila Odinga deserves the presidency because he has worked for it, no one in the Kavirondo Gulf, currently, can come close to level of Raila Odinga. What Wakili Kipkorir has verbalised there, sadly, is the thinking within the URP-TNA wing. That is why they are labouring to resuscitate good old KANU and re-position Gideon Moi to succeed Kenyatta II when his second term comes round the last bend. If I were William Ruto and I was reading that, I would be a very worried man.
Kenyans should, and must, be dissuaded from this thinking that they will be doing the Odingas a favour by putting one of their own at the helm. If Wakili Kipkorir’s public plea to award the Odingas was to hold any water then Dr. Oburu Odinga, as the first son – and automatic cultural heir to Jaramogi – would be the one being fronted by the Luo to succeed the father of opposition politics. But Oburu could not even win a seat in 2013, and had to be nominated to Parliament. It means the Luo, of Siaya County, looked beyond the name when they were going to the party primaries in 2013. This is the sort of persuasion that should follow any argument for a Raila Odinga presidency in 2017.
Anybody supporting Raila Odinga because he is a Luo would do us a favour and spoil that vote. The same goes to anybody supporting Raila Odinga because his father signed a pact with Kenyatta and Kenyans are now obliged to ‘return the hand’. If that argument was to hold, then Lupita Nyong’o would now be Seme MP and Raychelle Omamo would be holding the people of Muhoroni by their windpipe.
I am currently reading Tom Mboya’s autobiography ‘Freedom and After’ and here is what he says about the tribalization of the Presidency;
“With the return of senior ex-detainees, whom the newspapers have dubbed ‘the Kikuyu old guard’, these fears have been increased by some thoughtless individuals who have claimed that Kenyatta’s leadership is Kikuyu leadership which they must do everything to uphold. We have said publicly that any Kikuyu who looks on Kenyatta’s leadership in that light will inevitably produce an anti-Kikuyu reaction from the other tribes…” pp 74.
He was assassinated for his straight talk, 5 years later.
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