- Raila made a quiet entry to avoid attracting mammoth crowd that would have breached government’s directives on Covid-19.
- ODM national chairman John Mbadi – Raila’s close confidant – told the Star that the secret return was necessary in line with the current Covid-19 restrictions.
Image: FILE
ODM leader Raila Odinga made a quiet entry into the country to avoid attracting a mammoth crowd that would have breached the government’s directives on Covid-19, his close confidant has revealed.
ODM national chairman John Mbadi – Raila’s close confidant – told the Star Raila never wanted his return to be made public for fear his supporters would throng the airport to welcome him back, thereby exposing them to the risk of contracting coronavirus.
“If you announce that Raila is coming back, you will get a mammoth crowd at the airport. We didn’t want a crowd to go and welcome Jakom. The best thing is to do it quietly the way he has done it,” the Suba South legislator said.
“He is a leader who has been advocating and telling people to keep social distance, so how could he again create an environment where people will violate the social distance directive?”
Mbadi further said the opposition chief will be working from his Karen home for at least two weeks and will only entertain a few people in his residence.
“He is pretty strong. You don’t want to put Raila in a situation where he goes back to the office and it is going to be crowded,” he said.
On a normal day, the AU special envoy operates from his Capitol Hill office in Nairobi’s Upper Hill.
The ODM leader touched down in Nairobi after a three-week stay in Dubai where he underwent a minor surgery.
Raila arrived in the country around 10pm on Sunday after his private luxurious Constellation Aviation Airline Airbus A318-112 (CJ) Elite A6-CAS taxied to the presidential pavilion at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
He was accompanied by her daughter Winnie.
“His plane landed at the presidential pavilion at JKIA at night yesterday,” a top security officer told the Star on Monday.
The officer said Raila was picked up from the presidential pavilion and driven to his home in Karen.
However, he refused to release more details because of protocol issues.
The Star established that the aircraft has a 19 passenger capacity. It left Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai at 5pm and landed at JKIA at about 9.40 pm.
It was not clear who was part of Raila’s entourage during the five hours trip. A check by the Star established that original destination of the aircraft was Lusaka but was diverted to Kenya.
On July 1, the ODM party leader expressed gratitude to Kenyans for standing with him as he received treatment in the United Arab Emirates.
In a one-minute video shared by his daughter Winnie, Raila, clad in a mustard polo T-shirt and blue shorts said the messages of goodwill from Kenyans made him recover quickly.
“I want to thank all my friends, supporters and all our youth who have sent me so many messages of goodwill. It has just been amazing and wonderful. It makes me recover so fast,” Raila said.
Edited by Henry Makori