Unlike the mindless love of a reckless youth, an old man’s love is calm and teargas-free. It is also steady and constitutionally bound. Or is it? In the continuing saga of the Raila Odinga and Kenya love story, there are new developments. Chapter two of the story brings us to a heated scene in the city, culminating with the Suitor gasping, and choking from police induced tears.
This day, Monday April 25, was devoted to ejecting the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission commissioners. It was the execution of what would have been a brilliant plan, only that it was shoddily executed. The brilliance in the plan was this: Okoa Kenya was a phantom referendum. The intention was never to successfully accumulate signatures, it was a ruse to create an object of aggression in the IEBC, and thus begin a chain of timely mass action.
One actually wonders if the material day had been thought through. Was the assumption that once the gates are opened, 500 protestors would peacefully stroll in? Would they have calmly marched directly to the 6th floor to amicably eject the commissioners? Would they then exit the building, having broken no glass, wrecked no property and left the premises intact? History and common sense tell us that the outcome would have been ugly. The 500 would have surged in, scoured all 26 floors upsetting everything in their wake. They would also have plundered. The egg on Raila’s face would be dripping to date, and he would have been hard-pressed to justify the destruction of private property for the attainment of his political objectives. He would lose his current moral standing and jeopardise his cause. Also, what end would a physical ejection of the IEBC commissioners have contributed to this cause? Come to think of it, what is the immediate cause?
In my view, three things will bungle Raila’s decades-long seduction of Kenya.
First, he appears to be a believer in SSDD (Same Solutions, Different Day, while expecting similar results. Raila’s strategies borrow heavily from those he applied in past years. It fact, he actively recycles them. Okoa Kenya mirrors the 2005 referendum. The systematic ignition of sporadic unrest imitates the run-up to 2007-08, which precipitated a coalition government.
Secondly, Raila’s strategies are too transparent. Take two minutes out of your daily schedule and you can figure out his entire game plan. This shortcoming causes his opponents to be a step ahead of him at any one time. The appeal of mystery, so necessary in love and in politics, is starkly missing.
Lastly, there appears to be trouble in paradise. The Cord-ODM house is not in order. Raila engages his own party in a beautiful deception, using them as step ladders to finally capture his long-coveted Kenya. He props himself with one foot on Moses Wetang’ula’s head, and another on Kalonzo Musyoka’s shoulder. Even as the Cord co-principals want in on the big job, they know in their hearts that the spot, at least within the party, is reserved for the head honcho. The disgruntled bunch is then tempted into constant wrangling, or, worse, sabotage. And so continues the degeneration of the tragic love story.
a union borne out of violence can only beget children wired to engage in hooliganism