There have been maandamano on Wednesday and Thursday aimed at shutting down the country. Azimio leader Raila Odinga has decided to intimidate Kenyans, promising violence using ‘peaceful’ demonstrators across the country. It follows that indeed; a good number of Kenyans bought this narrative and refused to show up at work.
This in my view is the greatest height of dishonesty on the part of Azimio since looking at their nefarious demands, one can clearly say that the aim is to sabotage the government more that the so called high cost of living.
The whole scheme is to deny the government the much needed revenue and to incite Kenyans against any policy that is aimed at placating an already worse economic situation. Given a chance to properly implement ‘The Plan’ the government will surely be able to turn around the economy.
Deep within us, we all know that Raila is predictable. That he has used this game for long in his quest to have a stake in any government. In the last Uhuru administration, he was so successful in doing so in that he was able to bulldoze himself into government, drive a wedge between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Samoei Ruto so much so that the biggest crime in govt was to be seen to associate with Ruto.
Many of us who supported the then Jubilee programme of 10 years for Uhuru and another 10 for Ruto were thrown out of government and ostracised. We were taken through hell due to committing this ‘crime’. Raila succeeded in peddling fear so much that he became the preferred candidate for not only Uhuru, but for the wealthy elite.
A man who had credited himself as a ‘saviour’ for the hoi polloi, all of a sudden was the billionaires' candidate. Keen to maintain the status quo, Uhuru and Raila found common interest in perpetuating their stranglehold on the national leadership through the much discredited BBI process.
Now Raila is back to his familiar territory of unleashing structured chaos using the cost of living as a basis to collect is it 10 or 15 million signatures to ensure that ‘Ruto Must Go’. A clear denial of the fact that they were defeated in the last general elections with a thin margin of only 234.811 votes or 1.64 per cent of the vote, akin to the 2007 defeat from Mwai Kibaki. Even then, Raila Odinga bulldozed himself into govt through a settlement dubbed ‘The National Accord’. This is the same thing that he is currently pursuing.
However, Raila is the one responsible for the country having adopted a pure presidential system or what is called the Washington consensus, away from his longstanding quest for a parliamentary system.
Having felt that he would win the presidency anyway, his proposal is the one that dealt away with the position of the official leader of opposition since presidential candidates were no longer members of the National Assembly. Due to the fact that his main competitors Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto were facing charges at the ICC, Raila’s projection was that he would be left unchallenged to win the presidency.
If for sure Raila is a true democrat as he claims, how comes he is not accepting the verdict of Kenyans that was unanimously confirmed by the Supreme Court? If we encourage hooliganism and violence across the country so that elections don’t make sense as they only settle the political contest partially; if the verdict of our judicial system cannot be respected, then we are telling our future generations that these institutions don’t matter.
Raila is practically inviting us to the rule of the jungle. He is calling upon us to engage in extra-constitutional means in order to pre-empt the take-off of this govt ab-initially, knowing all too well that a govt needs the first 24 months for it to settle, since thereafter, politics gets in the way. This is the essence of our own underdevelopment since economic growth, hence prosperity requires that a country has long uninterrupted periods of stability.
By unleashing an army of unemployed youth with stones and crude weapons in the name of peaceful protests; by inciting members of the public on the high cost of living while only last year just before the general elections, he had clearly stated that this has to do with other external factors in a post-Covid regime, Raila knows only too well that if he doesn’t cash in on this crisis, food prices have already started to come down due to the harvest of produce such as potatoes, maize, french beans, cabbage etc.
It is, therefore, imperative for Kenyans to rise up and vote with their feet and hands, return to work and ignore the calls to maandamano. Our mainstream media should also be more patriotic and not incite Kenyans in order to aid their candidate who lost in the last general election. Kenya has got great potential, President Ruto has a great plan, and the time to transform our country is now.
We can do it; the destiny of our country cannot be aborted.
To God and country
