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It is official and spoken by Raila Odinga himself that his colleagues within ODM Kenya want him to settle for the non-existent Prime Minister’s post and step down from being a presidential candidate to break the current stalement within the party.
In other words imagine a situation where you cheat a small child that you will bring them some candy when you get back home from work. You renege on your promise and the next morning you promise exactly the same thing. Surely, even if that child is mentally challenged…
The bigger issue here which Kenyans should see (instead of just concentrating on their preferred presidential candidates) is the fact that everything is being decided for us. WHY? In other words we are not intelligent enough to decide who our next president should be. The masses as they say, always have to be led like sheep.
When will we wake up and say “NO”? When will we rise up and take our country back? And yet we have the power, especially those of us with voter’s cards.
As it is, we have now been very effectively neutralized because we are busy fighting amongst ourselves (even in this blog) over who is a better presidential candidate and why. Meanwhile it really does not matter who gets elected, they will all be more of the same for us Kenyans. Kalonzo, Raila, Mudavadi Uhuru, Kibaki etc. will NOT bring the change we badly need. Sorry my friends, but let me just say the truth and stop being hypocritical.
There is no way that Kalonzo will restore the looted fortunes of Kenya back to the people. Even Raila can not. How can he when he is planning to form an all-inclusive government that includes the very thieves who have looted this country. Kalonzo is planning the same. Kanu is there to protect the wealth of those it made fabulously rich. Period. Delegates and its’ so called die hard members are just being used as pawns. M,e and you are also on course to being used as pawns in the forthcoming polls.
I hear you saying that we have no option. Really? Are you sure?
What is stopping me and you discussing here and coming up with an appropriate name of some principled Kenyan, a political nobody? And then presenting that candidate for election? My friends we do not know the power we have, let us wake up. It is only when we decide to do something that realistic solutions will present themselves. But as long as our minds are “locked” we will go nowhere.
Let me not say much, but instead give a small illustration. You know how they train elephants for the circus? They start when the elephant is a baby. They tie it on a leash and it spends a lot of time playfully trying to get out but is totally unable to. Meanwhile the elephant is growing all the time and is one day big and powerful easily able to free itself from the leash. But guess what, the elephant does not even try, (it gave up a long time ago) because it is already convinced that IT CANNOT. Imagine that! A big powerful animal tied to a small tiny rope that it can break with one small jerk of its head or body.
That is exactly how me and you and every Kenyan is today.
Kenya has changed. A LOT!! Talk to any Kenyan irrespective of their tribe and they will tell you that they are fed up. Everybody wants change. But we just don't have the balls to go for it (excuse my language).
Sadly we have already accepted defeat before the contest has even started. Some people even wants us to start discussing 2012 because 2007 has already been decided.
We are all sure of the following;
It is impossible for somebody to win the presidency without forming a coalition ahead of the elections.
It is impossible to get Kenyans to NOT vote along tribal lines. (quick question; how many tribes voted for Kibaki in 2007?)
It is impossible for a germ of an idea in this blog to decide the next elections.
This blogger is daydreaming.
I don’t want to ask you guys to read history, because I know you will not. But all I can say is that there are many examples of people who have done what was at first believed to be impossible. Besides it is best to fail while trying something different other than to do the same old thing which has always given you the same results and to then expect different results. HOW?
We (me and you) have the power to decide. It is our God-given right. So why don’t we dare to dream and then try and make that dream come true?
Nationalist Tom Mboya’s father once jeered at his son. The illiterate sisal picker asked his son;
“This mzungu who is so clever that he manufactures machines to fly in the air and has made so many wonderful thing… you really think you can outsmart him?”
The old man, although he was illiterate, made a lot of sense. Mboya was a Form 4 graduate. A voracious reader, but still he had never seen the inside of an A-level classroom, let alone a university campus. How could he possibly outsmart the all powerful colonial government?
But you know the story. You know that Mboya did achieve the impossible. For your information when he took up the rallying cry of "Uhuru sasa" in 1961, virtually every Kenyan thought he was crazy in the head. It did not look like Kenya could get independence in the next 10 years.
My dear brothers and sisters, the time has come for us to take courage and think the impossible. Getting a non-tribal leader and the government that will bring the change we deserve. Let us debate this issue here in the coming days even as we launch our stop the violence campaign. Let me sign off today by quoting the quote from Ritchie’s comment here recently;
I know some of us have ever read “The Nation’s Prayer” but I reproduce it here for the benefit of all of us:
“God give us men!
A time like this demands: strong minds, great heights, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who posses opinions and a will;
Men who have honour; Men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue;
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tell men, sun-crowned who live above the fog;
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while they rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds;
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps;
Wrong rules the land, and waiting justice sleeps.”
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Are you a Kenyan? Do You love your country? Join in this noble campaign to change things. Do something instead of just complaining.
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It is not you, not a blogger in this site or any other person who said it, but one Raila Odinga.
ReplyDeleteThis week, there was an excahnge of mail between two of your bloggers and it was interesting to follow it. At one time, it was hot baout how good Raila was and not and kept many guys hooked.
I think, the issue of isolation was even spoken about and the ratings were also said. Actually, the whole story in the paper might have been pre-empted here this week.
So, the thing is that Raila Odinga is isolated and the others have gamnged up against him. Rating or not, he is not gpoing to the top jopb. Only sorry that the tribe line came from him
Chris you must be among the few lucky Kenyans to own a barometer of Kenya's politics pulse. Your blogers perfected long ago what the politicians are doing presently - tribal calculus taking precedence in every decision. Come to think of it, with one sweep these chaps have trashed all the lofty ideas they have been painfully sellibng to Kenyans.
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake, there is no honesty in any of these lot. The truth is that ODM has taken tribalism a notch clever by cobbling mega tribal enclave. And where does that leave us? One of them may be able to offer some tokenism that smells change while all the others are only nostlagic and dreamers of the good life in SH. Don't even try to mind read here because unfortunately you won't succeed.
We are witnessing back stabbing and heart mentality at their best. These two vices can be cleverly packaged as virtues but we are smarter than they think. MPs are busy pushing selfish interests to secure their seats at the expense of all Kenyas. Who gave them the mandate to cut deals beyond Dec 2007?
Kenyan politics is better studied in paralel to the art of war - you scheme for lethal termination while smilling plastically with your next victim. Where is the objectivity and difference in all these schemes? If they wanted a complete break from the norm and predictable then Ojiambo was the best bet. But you know as I do that in our shores gender parity is beter preached and not consumed lest we suffer objective constipation.
By the way could it be that some smart alek is pulling the string on ODM from without? Opinion polls have become the vogue in Kenya and it the best bet to plant political poisson. Place KM at the top and let the others segregate and tear him a part. Then after a commercial break shore the 'king' the throne and as he salivates gang all and sundry to scuttle his dream. Just a wild thought!
The ODM brigade have adopted a siege mentality and they are only resorting to what is natural hunting as a pack against one of their own. Standard newspapers has its faults but like them, hate them but its the HOTTEST poltical newspaper in Kenya presently.
Dear Vikii hope you are reading and please allow me to kindly indulge in some harmless intimidation. For your information I have been reading DN and Std close to 2 decades before you were born and am capable of smelling a lie mile away. I will vogorously protect your right to be wrong but the home truths wouldn't mutate brother. Denying the siege mentality and sickening stereotypes is the height f intellectual dishonesty to put it mildly.
I am not defending anybody guys. What I am sick of is the fact over 90% of anti luo barbs come from the people themselves. Raila Odinga is looking for sympathy and instead of doing that using his tears, he goes on to stat questioning whether it makes sense for the luos to continue putting up in Kenya if they can never be given an opportunity. This is in my opinion baby crying coz only two of the 42 kenyan tribes have been at the helm. Even the luhyas who outnumber the luos do not laugh at themselves, they soldier on without whinning. The kamba, kisii, maasai etc are not talking about imaginary suppression at the slightest provocation. This is a very defeatist attitude if u ask me.
ReplyDeleteWhat Chris is suggesting here is very noble. What I must point out is that winning the Kenyan presidency is not like laying your next door neighbour. It is far much harder than that. We can draw names here and now, but that candidate will not be ready for the coming polls. He or she will be ready to serve at least five years from now if we embark on serious campaigns to liberalise the minds of ordinary kenyans.
2012 should be the focal point. My emphasis has been above everything else a corruption-free leader. I am not earning what I am worth because of some peole who stole money from state coffers and no amount of prodding is gonna make me view them in any better light. They must carry their crosses and that is why i say better Kibaki than anybody ever implicated in deals where kenyans were fleaced.
I believe Willy Mutunga, Jimmy Orengo, Maina Kiai,Mutava Musyimi, Raphael Tuju,John Kiarie KJ and Patrick Lumumba are some of the names we should be seriously thinking of. Another name i think we should have there is that of UK but most of you might disagree. We can start introducing these guys to kenyans as a team that's gonna liberate them and then we front the one with the most national appeal as the presidential candidate. As i said, we are time barred now and we can embark on this project as early as Jan 2008. One piece of advice is to resist any temptation to allow political left-overs in their fold. That my little people is the only way to realize the now much talked about change.
Taabu, sasa, mambo inabadilika kila saa.
ReplyDeleteThis week I have made it really obvious that none of the ODM brigade can beat Mwai. Yes. Period.
But look at it, not beyond a week and see how things have unravelled so fast, that even the people who could have made peace are not there to be consulted.
ODM makosa ya kwanza ni Kanu! Two years ago, one of the senior Kanu politicians said that Kanu is 'not a small party' to fold and join ODM. It is LDP, LPK et al that should fold to join the party that brought independence.
Another mistake. Again from the Kanu end. There was not wide thinking or rational I can rephrase that, when Uhuru demanded for an Election Board. Raila and group hurriedly convened one, to do what, to suit Uhuru's demands. then the 40-40-20. Again, the ODM ceded to that request.
Twice Prof Nyongo ceded to the Uhuru requests, after it was clear that the most popular among the lot was Raila Odinga. He had taken Rift Valley under wraps and was invited in every single division with pomp, and leaders even fighting over photo sessions with him.
Infact to be honest, Raila's campaign nationally was incomparable for an ODM ticket nomination. It was equal to the main one.
Overnight, they started dancing to the tune of Uhuru and the Kanu team, then slowly, Uhuru met Kalonzo, met Musalia and there was no ODM after that.
At least Taabu, Vikii, Kalamari and Chris saw the sober part of the argument that it was not quite real for Raila. I saw that there was a chance that they would reconcile at one point, but not after Uhuru hosted that Kanu meeting in Kasarani where he used a collosal amount of money, but could not raise 1 million nomination fee to keep ODM united.
Now, the deadline has passed, they are yet to set another deadline for the nomination process, Mutula Kilonzo and the Kiema Kilonzos are pulling in a different direction. Mutula, as one of the sober brains in cretorie, simply cannot stand the heat at this time that the tribal linkages have started coming out.
It might be anarchy (not that one) as they struggle to maintain peace within their lot. What else, the Mudavadis, Kalonzos (count Rutto Out) - Moi put him in his rightful place- are now planning the next move.
Anyway, it was a defeatist way for Raila to say that the Luo are not allowed to lead. He should have thought deeper about the statement. Unless he is trying a political gimmick to stir sympathy, then, it was a sorry statement. Should not happen again!!!
ReplyDeleteThat is my personal opinion. Childish. Actually, it is the 'pumbavu's' this year.
Not so fast guys. The adage 'a day in politics is a lifetime' appear to mean nothing to your good people. We are all reacting to the spurs of the moment and hurriedly building hypothetical conclusiions. Good for academia but embarassing in reality.
ReplyDeleteWe still hhave more than 100 days to the next poll and trying to hypothesize that we forget 2007 elections and that we look at 2012 only succceeds in betraying your age(s). Beleive you me by October 2007 most (all) of your comments here will not only be obsolete but irrelevant. This years elections is not over yet and it is over till its over.
2007 elections have no preceedent and predicting it is the most tracherous act one can commit. From now on emotions will fly and some will never come back to earth. But one thing you cannot run away from is that fact that we haven't seen anything yet interms of political heat.
The game of politics is no church service nor awedding and the ODM fiasco is simply measuring to the billing. It would have been such and anti climax were the epidode to be stripped of all the heat.
Cleverly corrupting 'payment by the same coin' is a strategy with all the risks of being seen as fox in sheepskin. And by the way your don't buttress your argument by drawing from your competitor's past seat that you now occupy. It depicts the dearth of dynamic strategy on your part, doens't it? Akin to two wronds making a righ.
Granted, most (all) of the comments here are elitist at best and academic at worst. The same chaps you are deriding will coast home come December tupende tusipende. And who said you can't shed tears, crocodile or human, for votes?
There are nine tested ways to skin a cat all of which is warns of the risk of sitting on it lest you incur full wrath of enraged paws. And I repeat for the umpteenth time that heard mentality is shortermism that leaves you expose for your smart opponent to formulate the best strategist to always outwit you.
Now my dear Vikii couldn't have been more riight with his analogy of second best(ers) always ganging up with the rest of average performers to fight number one. But brother Vikki irrepairably punctured his apt sail of comparison with the classroom example, which is always the exception to that rule. You can't take away the brains of your competitor (unless Mungiki style) because reverse logic wins no marks.
There is only one proven path to win the class scenario. You have to measure to the best and you can't bring him down to your inferior level where you are an expert in inferiority. An example of where reverse logic waorks Vikii is that of powerful traffic policeman whose orders of 'weka gari kando' makes drivers tremple. But on reaching home at the door, the wife orders him 'toa kofia unstua nao watoto'. With that single order all the power is gone and the man is left 'naked' and vulrenable to the wife's (often iliterate) tirades. We are all students of life, aren't we?
Something about politics...it has a way of just taking the life out of you. It's so frustrating, to see the same issues I used to hear my parents discuss over the coffee table with their friends some 20 years ago, the same exact complaints about the our stupid & inneficient Kenyan government.....are the same exact issues I'm complaining about...with my friends over my coffee table.
ReplyDeleteI love Kenya to death...but sometimes I wonder, if this fight to change Kenya is even worth it....ama do I just enjoy life and leave the rest to God? Sometimes I think of brave men who came before us, and fought this fight for change...akina the Matibas,Masinde Muliros,Rubias,Ogingas and more recently John Githongo...and I look at how Kenya rewarded them. Even today, it's the people who persecuted these men that are in the gorvenment today in Kenya. So I wonder, I know their fight did good for us the public...but was it worth it for them, from a personal perspective?
Pliz, don't underestimate the power of the ideas we throw around here on Kumekucha...these are the kind of things that grow momentum, and bring about change even in an entire country. But it won't be free. Sacrifices will be made. Health sacrifices,career sacrifices,marriages and even loss of lives. Just ask Matiba or M.L. King or Gandhi.
So, I wonder...if we the young Kenyans succeeded in these ideas we throw around...and actually brought about the change in Kenya that our hearts dream for...will it all be worth it? Or will we be the objects of ridicule & jokes, by the very people we fought for? (E.g: Matiba).Will it all be worth it? I just wonder.
I agree with the sentiments on your post. Only, I would approach the issue in a different way. Since we have to operate within the limits of the existing political system, and acknowledging the unlikelyhood of a "clean and honest" chap ascending to the Presidency, I would suggest that the best way to minimize the damage that may be caused by any one of the current crop of front runners is to deny them a majority in Parliament.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, my voting strategy amounts to this: vote whomever you wish to be President (as you pointed out in your post, the individuals are equally selfish), but the vote the opposing party into parliament.
Giving one party all the reigns of power is suicidal, as our recent history has proved.
Si hata kumekucha ana TOSHA !
ReplyDeleteKEMEKUCHA FOR PRESIDENT PPLE!!!
Okay guys. First, Kalamari, Vikkii and Taabu, please comment on the story. If you want to rewrite the story, just ask for a column from Chris. I mean, your comments are just too long and punctuated with the PLO type of vocabulary. Not that I don't understand the terms. Just be a bit simple, such terms only make your comments longer and boring.
ReplyDeleteAll said and done, if you remember very well, I am quoted on this blog as supporting for consensus. But you can't blackmail your colleague and then call that consensus. And I still insist, confronting Raila only makes him fight harder. It's not that Raila doesnt support consensus. Only that the other guys have already made up their minds. That's not consensus. It is intimidation. All the same, I'm just wondering where the delegates will come from. Will ODM go the NARC K way-elections? That would be suicidal.
Guys, I am not one who'll bask in glory because Raila, or Ruto, or Kalonzo wins the ODM ticket. I believe in team work. But tem work is not about isolation, it's about understanding. I am sorry to say this, but if it is not Raila, it will not be Kalonzo either. That's where Mudavadi comes in!!! Correct me if I am wrong.
All the same, for all the ODM supporters reading this blog, do not waiver, dither or tinker with your vote come Decemebr. Kibaki has to go home,even if Biwott(ouch!!) is to replace him.
Always, Dan!
I support you anonymous, if Kumekucha (Chris) decided to stand for the top sit, Taabu can be his running mate, once he gets the top office he should give us the constitution withing the first year, then phil can be the Prime Minister, vikii 2nd Vice president, derek 3rd Vice president, others like Kalamari, luke etc........ get ministerial posts.
ReplyDeleteHakuna haja ya kuangalia mbali, hata nyinyi muna tosha!
People, you are joking over a heavy matter. How old is Raila now: About 63 or thereabouts and if he does not contest this time, then it means he must in 2012 when he will be 68. Can you see the danger of denying agwambo the opportunity. That will be a time when professor will also be there plus of course Uhuru.I just want to say this if you have ears people, that you give this man a chance, if for anything else, for the tears.
ReplyDelete