REMARKS OF RT. HON RAILA ODINGA; EGH AT THE WIPER DEMOCRATIC PARTY NATIONAL DELEGATES CONFERENCE; KASARANI; DECEMBER 13, 2016:
Let me begin by congratulating the Wiper Democratic Movement fraternity for this great convention.
I particularly wish to congratulate the Wiper Leader my brother and co-principal in CORD Hon Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka for his endorsement to be the party’s presidential candidate and for the stamina, focus and dedication driven by the pain for Kenya that has seen him steer Wiper into a formidable Opposition force against tremendous odds.
A number of our opponents thought the Wiper Leader would not weather the storm and trials of Opposition politics and that his party would soon fold up and seek accommodation in Jubilee.
The satanic minds in Jubilee that worship money and power laid out every trap to ensure such an eventuality. That is why they started the talk of Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka will only get their pensions if they retire from politics.
That is how they began the story of Hon Kalonzo Musyoka and Raila Odinga cannot be allowed to use VIP lounges at our airports and must not use facilities of our missions abroad because they have been defeated and they are no longer leaders.
That was the reason they refused to give our parties their dues of the Political Parties Fund.
They hoped that with so many difficulties on our path, we would simply succumb, go down on our knees and go to Jubilee begging.
I was reflecting yesterday as I prepared for this meeting. Knowing my brother Steve to be a man of faith, I found myself likening the tribulations of the last four years to those of Job in the Old Testament.
As I went through the first chapter of Job, I was struck by Satan’s character; so much like Jubilee’s. On the day Satan showed up, God asked him, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered: “I am from roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
Like Satan, Jubilee has roamed, looking for people to confuse and to buy. Jubilee thought they would break our spirits and our unity through humiliation and insults that would make us lie low or retire and leave them to loot and plunder the country in peace.
That is what Satan thought; that after afflicting Job with so many tribulations; taking away all his oxen, his sheep, camels and killing his sons, Job would give up on his grand mission.
How wrong they were!
When they rigged themselves into power in 2013, they thought five years is an eternity and a lifetime and that by the time another election came, Wiper, ODM and FORD Kenya would long be separated.
How wrong they were.
Eight months to elections, we are stronger and more united than ever, ready to face Jubilee as an expanding Opposition.
Jubilee has panicked. They have resorted to the tired script: warning imaginary foreigners from interfering with elections, issuing decrees against civic education and they are threatening to go to court when defeated. Kenyans, not foreigners, want a regime change in Kenya and they will get it.
Jubilee has realized money can’t buy them love.
On our part, we are saying the elections will have to be free, fair, transparent and credible. The results will have to be verifiable. Then there will be no need to fear violence and there will be no need to go to court.
Cord will respect the results of free, fair, credible and verifiable elections. We will accept nothing less.
We will not accept an election driven only by desire for peace and whose mantra is “accept and move on.”
We shall not accept the peace and silence of the grave because we all know how painful that peace is.
We came together as CORD to restore and safeguard fundamental provisions of our Constitution particularly devolution, equity, democracy, integrity in leadership and the unity of our nation.
These ideals are more threatened today than they were when we came together as CORD. Jubilee has become the biggest threat to our nationhood since independence.
Theft of public resources, tribalism, threats to Devolution, marginalization of communities and regions and undermining the Constitution has become hallmarks of the Jubilee administration. Jubilee has become a cancer in our nation. Our citizens expect us to stop it before it spreads its tentacles to other parts of the body of our nation.
Getting Jubilee out of power is therefore a patriotic duty that Kenyans expect us in CORD to help them realize.
To achieve this, we in Opposition will have to make sacrifices and be driven by pragmatism. Our unity is more crucial than ever before.
Only a single, united Opposition front will see us rid Kenya of the cancer of Jubilee. We must grow our numbers by bringing more people on board.
In 2013, a slight fracture in Opposition ranks enabled the Jubilee fraudsters to defraud Kenyans of the promise of the new constitution.
Even then, Jubilee had to stuff the ballot with extra papers to arrive at a victory even its top leadership doubted. Yes, they doubted their victory because they knew it was a fraud.
That is why they have tried to reverse the constitution to give themselves dictatorial powers.
That is why there was all that cry about Raila and Kalonzo must retire.
That is why they are trying every trick to cling on to discredited electoral commissioners.
That is why they went all out to ensure we did not take them to a referendum whose aim was to ensure a level electoral playing field.
Make no mistake. Jubilee is cursed with fraudsters who have used their skills these past four years to steal anything that can be stolen from Kenyans.
They intend to use the proceeds of their fraud to steal the next polls.
That will amount to exposing Kenyans to 10 years in the wilderness.
We must not allow it to happen.
We are united. We must remain united. And we must grow our numbers.
Opposition unity is what stands between the people of Kenya and the clean and honest government they want and deserve.
We must not fail.
God Bless You
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