Presidential aspirant Raila Odinga is feeling the heat. His friends in the ODM-Kenya say the Langata MP planned the visit to the United Kingdom by top ODM leaders for his own benefit.
According to insiders, Raila planned the whole tour without briefing his colleagues on the itinerary and even went ahead to solicit funds for the trips sponsorship from characters in London with dubious reputations like Bishop Gilbert Deya of the miracle babies scandal.
The bishop is wanted in Kenya to face child trafficking charges and both Kenya and the UK government are holding talks on how to bring back the semi literate clergyman to face the charges.
However, Bishop Deya is also known to be a close friend to another ODM presidential aspirant Kalonzo Musyoka who skipped the trip along with other leaders, poor Raila was in London with only MPs Anyang' Nyong'o, Joseph Nyagah and Omingo Magara.
The truth is that all ODM leaders have known about the London trip for months and they were also familiar with the identity of the organizers. Why suddenly leak out names of the organizers to the press and start pretending to be holier than thou at the eleventh hour? The answer is simple. That is exactly how politics is played when the competition is from within.
It is an open secret that Raila already believes that he is the ODM presidential candidate and nobody can stop him including Musyoka who is his main rival for the presidential nominations in the movement.
What Kalonzo supporters believe is that Raila is blind to the fact that apart from his Luo tribesmen, they is practically no other tribe that can vote for him in Kenya's ethnically-based politics hence making it almost impossible for him to be president.
Raila supporters say that this is nonsense and that Kenya has changed.
Still Kalonzo supporters are adamant that their man has much better chances than Odinga though the former does not have the finances and resources to win the presidency on his own and he badly needs the ODM-Kenya vehicle for his ride to state house.
Not only was the big London bash poorly attended but what Raila may not have considered is that a couple of his cronies in ODM can't get visa's to that country because of corruption allegations against them. Folks like William Ruto and Moses Mudavadi. Mutula Kilonzo is also a man Whitehall does not like. This appears to have been the perfect trigger to use to cause trouble, which is exactly what happened.
Real Gikuyu man answers lonely frustrated beauty who complained to Kumekucha about her lovers of the past.
The farce that is Kenyan politics is being aired out to dry. Ours being politics of the stomach, we are busy sowing rotten seed that will germinate into poisonous plants to exterminate all of us albeit latently.
ReplyDeleteRaila is only getting full dose of his own prescription. ODM-K fatally shot itself in the heart. They should have knon that UK doesn't share their plastic euphoria and strict visa vetting has embarassed all of them. Solidarity to protect the corrupt is not only cheap but hollow too.
Kalonzo is bitter for Raila's refusal to mouth TOSHA while has invested his all knowing that he knocking at the sunset door. All the others are but cheers leaders waiting on the sidelines to reap from their ethinic voting blocks. Ours is a cursed generation of politicians and unless we banish them to the nether world by making them poltically extinct we are headed into another era of lost opportunity.
Chris and others, just look at the amount of money Raila has collected in these Americanised presidential campaigns. A counsing in Toronto told me she paid a substantial amount with her husband to attend the Raila meeting there about a month ago.
ReplyDeleteThe last week, in Minesotta and Texas, a group of Kisii students linked to Magara conviced him to travel there and in all these meetings, about 20 now, Raila has been collecting funds for his campaigns.
It is campaign time, but are people going to keep on spending money on a candidate who is not yet confirmed to be running.
When some politicians say that Raila charges them to campaign for them, they are castigated and pilloried. Last week in London, they were telling people, 'remember to carry an extra 50 for the campaigns'. If this has been the trend then, we are all doomed.
Look at the current Luo Nyanza MPs, who is not related or associated with Raila? Bribes or not, Raila Odinga is between a rock and a hard place
As you handle the truth about the things going on with the ODM trip in London better than the daily newspapers in Kenya, can you please tell your tribesman Ben Agina to write the truth. Agina wrote rubbish about the Raila trip and ony piled praise on his leader. We know truths and who spends what on journalists and Aglo Leasing and what Deya spent on the reporters there. WE shall say it. KMDJ is a bunch of thugs and should not speak on behalf of kenyans in UK. there are not 50,000 members and the spin by nation to countre attack the ODM rally is one gone wrong. KMDJ memers are five, and the rest of the Kenyans can not even affilenate in any orgenisation. they are not legal.Rubbish lying Kenyan press!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is a pity to those who think Raila is unbeatable. He has been beaten so many times even by political minnows (Orengo and Wamalwa were minnows then). He is just feeling the heat of Kalonzo now and he has not seen half of it. When he holds press conferences and dares those who do not value teamwork to quit,one is left to wonder what the crap he is waiting for. He should quit ODM like yesterday because he always believes that the party is synonimous to him. Nobody is going to declare him Tosha,no, not even when he hires goons from Kibera to try to do the same at Uhuru park or when he tells the jang'os in London to dupe the other guys. Kalonzo ,may not be as loudmouthed as Raila but it's time for the whole wide world to see the political scheming. If Raila chooses to play Gentleman then good for him but if he engages on the "Political Conmanship" gear then he will have a taste of his own medicine.
ReplyDeleteWhether it is Raila, Ruto or Kalonzo, etc who wins the ODM-K nomination, that is neither here nor there. In a democracy, there are losers and winners, period. Chris, it seems to me that many people are praying for a split in ODM-K. And it also seems that this split is a matter of kufa na kupona, so to speak. Both Raila & Kalonzo have publicly said they dont have differences with one another, but acknowledge they are competitors for the ODM nomination. Is this a really headline news? Both politicians have publicly said that ODM-K will go a for delegates system to elect a candidate for 2007 polls. This is exactly what was agreed upon in Naivasha a few months ago. Honestly, where are all these stories about differences and isolation coming from? Dont people understand how democracy works? ODM-K and all its problems are being blown out of proportion by, you guessed it, prophets of doom. Let ODM / NARC-K and others sort themselves out, voters will decide when the time comes.
ReplyDeleteWhy, for example, cant people highlight and question who/which is the ruling political party in Kenya and which political party does the government owes its allegiance to? This, in my opinion, is of more importance that imaginary wars within the ODM-K party.