The Mt Kenya Times 
Azimio La Umoja Leader Raila Odinga
By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga
Worth Noting:
- One, to stop insisting that he had won the elections and pushing for the opening of the election servers. He kept alleging he was in possession of a dossier from a whistleblower. He used this card to incite his supporters to come out to the streets in large numbers and fight for their ‘rights’.
- The dossier shows I won the polls but Dr Ruto stole my election in broad day light. I know you are real men. You don’t fear anything. I, Raila Odinga, I’m your General. I’m ready to take the bull by its horns. With this, Raila’s ultimate goal was to stage a civilian coup.
I totally agree with the recent headline featured by one of the mainstream newspapers. Is Raila Odinga wounded?
I want to say this. His aides and handlers are to blame for this. They started misleading him soon after the chairman of IEBC Wafula Chebukati declared Dr William Ruto as the President-elect.
First, they made him to believe that he had won this elections and he stood a high chance of overturning Dr Ruto’s victory.
So when he filed a petition at the Supreme Court of Kenya, I was expecting the court to either confirm him as the President or order a repeat of the presidential election.
This didn’t come to pass. He suffered a devastating set back when the court dismissed his petition.
In a unanimous decision, the seven-judge bench ruled that his case fall far short of requisite constitutional thresholds.
The petition had been built from quick sand and shaky ground. It lacked evidence.
The petitioners just entertained us with propaganda, half-truth and outright lies.
The international and local election observers had also given the elections a clean bill of health.
The poll outcome had met the legal requirements of being free, fair, credible and verifiable.
As such, the will of the majority of Kenyans prevailed.
One would have expected Raila to learn a big lesson from this and consequently change the tack.
If I were one of his political advisors, I would have asked to stop making two demands.
One, to stop insisting that he had won the elections and pushing for the opening of the election servers. He kept alleging he was in possession of a dossier from a whistleblower. He used this card to incite his supporters to come out to the streets in large numbers and fight for their ‘rights’.
The dossier shows I won the polls but Dr Ruto stole my election in broad day light. I know you are real men. You don’t fear anything. I, Raila Odinga, I’m your General. I’m ready to take the bull by its horns. With this, Raila’s ultimate goal was to stage a civilian coup.
Raila’s allegations would not add up. We know he was the candidate of the ‘deep state’ and ‘system’ as the outgoing President fully backed him. Dr Ruto was on the other hand being treated like an outsider and outcast. So how could he have rigged him out?
This is not the first time Raila would make this kind of claims.
He had employed the same tricks to contest the outcomes of 2007, 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, respectively.
To me, this explains why many Kenyans distanced themselves from his plan to storm State House.
The state security would not allow the few supporters, who dared to march with him, to access this protected area.
Raila’s advisors should have told him. Just like the servers, Kenyans were not interested in his push for reinstatement of four IEBC commissioners.
Many stated openly. We went to the polls and elected Dr Ruto to be our president and other leaders. Raila should not take us back.
If he wants us to support him, he should focus on the cost of living.
This message resonated very well when he was holding the demonstrations.
The ‘hustlers’ always cheered him whenever he called on President Ruto to reduce the high cost of living.
But some Kenyans would pose. Does Raila have legitimacy to do this? This is because he was a principal in the ‘handshake’ government. This is the time the cost of living started to go up.
By the time President Uhuru Kenyatta’s second and last term in office was coming to an end, the retail price of 2kg packet of Unga stood at Sh230.
Recently, I watched with keen interest the debate on Finance Bill 2023. Once again, this demonstrated Raila’s Popularity was tumbling down.
Some members of his Azimio brigade gave the D-Day a wide berth. For those, who were in parliament, majority openly defied him. They joined their Kenya Kwanza counterparts and voted in favor of the Bill.
As we know, Raila’s instructions were very clear. This Bill is bad. It should be rejected in entirety.
With due respect, I want to ask Raila. If you could have won the election and form government what miracle would you have performed? This is in terms of raising money to run your government.
You could have resorted to crafting a tax regime that would have ensured every Kenyan paid taxes.
We all know the government does have monies of its own. Majorly, it relies on taxes to fulfill pre-election promises.
To me, this explains why Raila’s troops abandoned him. The electorates are on our neck. They want us to implement development projects we promised them. If we fail to pass this Bill, where money come from?
The two other factors that make me agree that Raila is wounded and he is unlikely to get back on his feet are: His advanced age and reports of his ill-health.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi
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