Not yet Uhuru in Kenya

NOT yet uhuru is the title of the autobiography written by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s First Vice President, and father of the man in the eyes of the storm, Raila Odinga. Uhuru is a Swahili word which means freedom.

It all started with the August 8, 2017 elections in which President Uhuru Kenyatta was declared winner for a second term. Odinga challenged the results at the Supreme Court which nullified the results and fixed a re-run for October 26, 2017, an election Odinga boycotted citing a lack of electoral reforms and which Kenyatta won with a landslide. Last week, in an apparent fulfillment of a threat he issued after the October re-run elections, Odinga was sworn in as the “Peoples President” at Uhuru Park, Nairobi, a potentially treasonable act punishable by death under Kenyan law. President Kenyatta responded swiftly by ordering a massive crackdown on media coverage of the event which led to the shutting of three private television stations, followed immediately by a government gazette declaring the National Resistance Movement, NRM, the “C” wing of Odinga’s party, the National Super Alliance, NASA, as an “organised criminal group”.

Before we begin to apportion blames as to who is right or wrong, between Kenyatta and Odinga, it is proper to establish certain facts regarding the Kenyan elections.

We must also not overlook the covert and overt intimidation of the judiciary by President Kenyatta and his allies after the Supreme Court nullified the August poll. The shooting of a bodyguard of a member of Kenya’s Supreme Court, Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu and the utterances of Kenyatta about the Supreme Court Judges after the annulment of the August poll lends credence to my assertion.

The political feud between Kenyatta and Odinga is reminiscent of that which existed between their fathers, Jomo Kenyatta and Jamarogi Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s first President and Vice President respectively, one a Liberation war veteran, the other a wealthy supporter of the Liberation war, who fell out with each other politically and became bitter enemies until their deaths. It seems to me that there is a calculated plan by the Kikuyu to monopolise power and perpetuate their hegemony in Kenyan politics.

• Peter Ovie Akus

Ifo, Ogun State