• Martha Karua, in an effort to rile the waters against the UDA government, reminded the crowd that “one is born once and dies once" and they should cease being afraid
• Raila and his team intend to create the myopic impression of an apocalypse as they seek to inspire youths to tag along.
Image: DOUGLAS OKIDDY
The popularity of English football in Kenya has remained at great heights for years on end.
A recent comical poster online carried the words: “You will hear a guy who cannot buy himself a cup of tea say that we bought Fernandes for 70M dollars”.
The guy in reference is apparently a Manchester United fan, not the reason he is being castigated. Rather the creator of the poster pokes fun at the extent of local conversations around English football.
Another day, a guy seeking to cool the temperatures between two soccer diehards asked them why they would be turned into enemies by people they do not know and whom perhaps they will never meet in their lives. A good number of Kenyans, like other earthlings, follow politics devotedly as they do football. It is not a surprise that the masterful Raila Odinga often employs football allegories to cheer his troops up.
Politics is exciting and attractive as politicians often make fun of one another, and sometimes harsh comments are not even couched in kinder terms, because this is what followers love.
Unknown to many recipients, political messaging is deliberately designed in a way that it hits the subliminal mind. Sometimes, the conduit is a practical problem, for instance, the high cost of living and, therefore, finger-pointing might direct a youth’s disappointment with the state of affairs towards a given politician.
UDA employed this nature of tack in the last elections, particularly in Central Kenya so that the perceived kingpin, Uhuru Kenyatta, grew unpopular with each day as the high cost of living was attributed to him, further dealing his choice of Raila a debilitating blow. Azimio called Ruto a ‘thief’ among other attacks.
Last Sunday during an Azimio Rally at Jacaranda Grounds, a lamenting Martha Karua, in an effort to rile the waters against the UDA government, reminded the crowd that “one is born once and dies once" and they should cease being afraid”.
Certainly, Raila and his team intend to create the myopic impression of an apocalypse as they seek to inspire youths to tag along. Paradoxically, Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka called for ‘peaceful demonstrations’ from Jacaranda but all know that the opposite is the agenda of the 2022 losers.
Were the Kamukunji and Jacaranda crowds an upside for Azimio?
The nonoccurrence of violence in 2022 after Raila predictably lost once more, cannot be overlooked. There really has been a growing enlightenment among Kenyan youth regarding politics. However, it is important to note that Raila and Azimio only have themselves to blame as history shows.
A while back, Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o narrated how members of Raila’s ‘Pentagon’ met, ostensibly to draft their supposed Cabinet, as early results of the 2007 election showed a strong Raila lead. Their camp was bullish, but a few hours later the likes of Charity Ngilu, William Ruto and Miguna Miguna were breathing fire upon the late Samuel Kivuitu’s team as tables turned.
A similar story would be repeated after the 2022 elections. One day, after Julie Soweto and others had made their sensational submissions to the Supreme Court, a video emerged of Raila hugging them and celebrating the process, only for the same exciting evidence to be dismissively labelled ‘hot air’ by the apex court.
Currently, there is haggling over the recruitment of the IEBC commissioners, a process Azimio believes must be nipped in the bud. All sides of the political divide have always been involved in the recruitment of the commissioners and other nitty gritty of the elections and interests play out in this.
The unfortunate division among the commissioners in the last elections with Chebukati and two others on one hand, and the “Cherera Four’, is obviously an indication of political interference. The matter of IEBC is dicey and this is not an indictment on them but political reflection.
Last year, Oburu Odinga famously declared, “the only thing we lacked was deep state and systems for Raila Odinga to be President. Now that we are in charge of ‘deep state’ and systems, Raila is the next President, his winning is guaranteed, and the handshake will make him the Fifth President".
This implied that Azimio expected something more to be done by the ‘deep state’, away from the ordinary voting process to make Raila winner. In a rebuttal, Ruto at some point called himself the ‘deep state’ stating that nobody could rig him out.
Ruto must have learnt after 2008 that being in a political process where one does not know the end from start is simply naive. Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang’ula, Johnson Muthama and others followed Ruto after 2017, knowing pretty well that power is taken and never given.
Most critically, Ruto must have learnt that investing in people and managing a political process closely is indispensable for one to win. In other words, ‘deep state’ are actual people.
Azimio’s inability to control relevant processes, not placing their people in the right places, putting wrong people in the right places, incapacity to recruit and remunerate agents in Mt Kenya, ineffective political messaging and endorsement by the incumbency, among other blunders, meant they did not plan to take power.
Yet, for how long shall Raila transfer his frustrations to Kenyan youth?
During political events, a Kenyan youth can most safely get direction from their own mind. Where, for instance, will one attending an Azimio rally get medical help from if they get injured? Where will one obtain fresh drinking water?
Youth is a critical period in a human being’s life and the energy should be an investment directed well. Yelping like a wounded beast on the street will not deliver food on one’s table, but harnessing opportunities that exist might.