Opinions & Features

U.S. is right in rejecting Kenyan opposition leader’s plan to be sworn in as president

In regard to the prevailing politics around the rumours of Raila Odinga planning to be sworn in as the President of Kenya,  I hereby concur with the US Department of African Affairs, especially and specifically for its rejecting Raila Odinga’s plan to take the presidential oath come  12th December 2017.

I also appreciate the call by the American department to the political leadership in Kenya to prioritize dialogue and compensation of the families of those people that lost their lives during the election demonstrations. Indeed, it is a timely call and a  very constructive political advise to be embraced by the people of Kenya.

This approach of dialogue and justice for the dead is much far better than the selfish mentality which has made Raila  Odinga think of taking the presidential oaths and Uhuru Kenyatta to think of using mega-sized police brutality on unarmed citizens as an effort to scuttle the swearing in.

The pertinent idea at this juncture is that Raila and Uhuru must evolve above their personal whims to put the country on the right path of nationalism and statehood, especially to compensate the families of the wounded and those who died in the violent demonstrations during  the previous elections.

Punctilious political thinking evidently shows that Raila Odinga is only playing Machiavellian politics which dictate that “always make your enemy busy”. Hence, he is only keeping  Jubilee government busy by using the vilest propaganda of swearing himself in as the president.

The truth is that Raila Odinga will not swear himself in as the President of Kenya. Raila is only using this as the propaganda to make Jubilee government panic, panicking to the extent of arresting David Ndii for no reason nor fallacy. So let the government ignore this propaganda and compensate the injured and the families of those who recently died in the election demonstrations.

Good political consciousness will have it as an irresponsibility amounting to critical impeachment of Kenya’s good statehood and nationalism if the political society in Kenya will dare not condemn the deaths of Chris Musando, Samantha Pendo, Stephanie, Mutinda, and other hundredfold  deaths in Bungoma, Kakamega, Mathare, Kibera, Kisumu, Kawamgware, Babandogo and Jogoo Road politically instigated to oblivion.

These are the Kenyan lives to be remembered with a passion because they were lost as a matter of being crushed in the stampede of passionate scramble for political power by  Kenya’s political class in 2017. Thus, it is a clear moral duty of those in power now to compensate the affected families. Failure to observe such simple humane obligations will make the future charge harshly at Kenya’s current society, a barn-yard animal and a beautiful swine of human civilisation that world has ever had.

The current dint of election hangovers that is now seen to be befuddling the people of Kenya leaves some hating Raila Odinga with passion as if in a fit of Raila-phobia while others are loving Uhuru and Ruto with mad passion as if in a fit of narcissism. This is not a foundation whatsoever of patriotism, neither is it virtuous nationalism to the tribe. It only makes those in the camp of Raila-phobia to yearn for the day Raila will be judged with high treason, without even reflecting for a moment that history of those personages judged with treason is the history of greatness replete with a watershed of names like Castro, Mandela and so forth.

I mean the approach taken by both Uhuru and Raila will not make Kenya a democracy, the approach taken by these two leaders in healing Kenya from a post-election fever is only leading Kenya to a snare of bourgeoisie dictatorship or bourgeoisie instigated violence. This is why the people of Kenya need not think of 2022 but instead think carefully about how to forge ways of making Kenya a place where each and all citizens see the possibilities of living a good and prosperous life.

Alexander Opicho

Alexander Ernesto Khamala Namugugu Islam Opicho is a published poet, an essayist, literary critic and short story writer. He was born in Bungoma, Western Kenya, but now he lives and works in the Savannah region of Lodwar, in North-Western Kenya.

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