In November 2020, I wrote on medium something that I should share again here.
The Uhuru-Raila handshake was now almost two-years old and Mt. Kenya, which had earlier grudgingly welcomed the handshake, was now completely opposed to it, and publicly so.
The year 2020 was the height of Tangatanga verses Kieleweke battle for the heart of Mt. Kenya, which battle the Kieleweke side lost. They had no chance against an old dogma.
Leaders allied to then Deputy President William Ruto had set a very toxic anti-Raila Odinga tone for the politics of the region, which made the region gravitate toward the then Deputy President.
Contrary to later claims that Mt. Kenya abandoned Uhuru because of Uhuru’s economic policies, nothing could have been further from the truth. Uhuru still splashed billions in Mt. Kenya; writing off debts, reforming key sectors in tea and coffee, growing the region’s dairy (today 99% of the processed milk in Kenya is by Mt. Kenya creameries), etc.
For national economy, Uhuru had been a disaster from 2014 and Mt. Kenya backed him up.
We prosecuted Eurobond and NYS thefts in the court of public opinion. Mt. Kenya treated these scams merely as “Raila anasumbua serikali”. The Muguruki. The Mchawi. Ni kawaida yake.
We went to the streets to reform election laws. And security laws. We backed striking workers. We fought energy cartels. In each of these, Mt. Kenya rallied behind Uhuru, to the man.
We boycotted rogue firms we felt aided the Uhuru regime. Safaricom, Brookside, etc. We spent years without travelling on SGR, to protest the theft and wastage of public resources which created overnight multi-millionares and launched the very arrogance of the Murkomens and the Kindikis, etc of this country (at that time they were known as the ‘Sky Team’), and still, Mt. Kenya stayed solid behind Uhuru and his Jubilee administration.
We were the people told “mtaendelea kumeza mate sisi tukikula nyama”. And do you recall “hii pesa si ya mama yako”? And truth is, that was how the country was run under Uhuru in his first term. The Kikuyus and the Kalenjins, and few of their enablers, were feasting; the rest of us were starving.
This passivity of Mt. Kenya to Uhuru’s many years of malfeasance only came to an end with the handshake.
In the immediate post-handshake period, pockets of resistance started to show, much of it obviously bankrolled by the Ruto’22 machine. By 2020, this resistance was now impervious.
Handshake’s paradoxes were many. Raila Odinga who had in the early years been seen to be opposing Uhuru for no justifiable reason by the Mt. Kenya groupies was now being accused of white-washing Uhuru’s ills. Raila Odinga’s Capital Hill offices, for years the last line of defence against Uhuru’s kakistocracy, was now branded a laundromat, per Tangatanga crude propaganda.
Despite having no seat on the government policy table, Raila was being attacked as the enabler of the government’s impunity.
People who had backed Uhuru’s impunity for years were suddenly shouting at the top of their voices how Kenya was headed in the wrong direction, with Raila just quiet.
To these people, Raila Odinga was damned both ways.
There are parallels now. People who supported Ruto just two years ago; who believed Ruto was the hustler’s answer to the pathologies wrought by the dynasties, are today the most pungent in their attacks of Ruto and the only reason for this is Raila’s decision to lay his arms.
I have warned people here for years now that Raila Odinga is mortal. Even within my Luo community, there’s always this temptation to make Raila Odinga a larger than life figure, which has been necessary for we needed a savior; but it must not be lost on us that Mr. Odinga is on his way out. He’s an old man. He’s run a good race.
This week, as President Ruto focuses in what appears solely to be a Luo agenda, first with today’s official state launch of Raila Odinga’s AUC bid; and later in the week with a packed four day tour of Luo Nyanza, expect heightened vitriolic attacks from those who believe the Luo should be kept away from the inheritance of our very citizenship as Kenyans, and to be treated as a national irritant.
Yet this much they should know: the Luo are exiting the picketline. We’ve stayed longer on the line than any other ethnic group in Kenya and our time is up. The Luo will take the peanuts or crumbs – whatever you call them – thrown to us by the Ruto regime, as we bid time.
Because ours is a long game. Our victory will not be immediate, but it is definite.
