Falling Out Of Love With Raila- Silas Nyanchwani

I was barely 20; an excitable, tall, wire-thin, green freshman at the University of Nairobi.

Up to that point, I wasn’t Raila Odinga’s most ardent fan. I grew up with James Orengo and Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o as the formidable Luo politicians. I grew up on the Abagusii-Luo border-my piece of ancestral land separated from Luo land by the thin, Charachani River. We shared two markets with the Luo, Ringa (Iringa in Kikisii), Riochanda (Commonly known as Miruka in Kisii-Nyamira).

Yet, despite the shared cultural exchange with Luos, the elders in our families didn’t always say nice things about Luos. All that idiotic nonsense about Luos favored by Moses Kuria and some provincial Kikuyu politicians was common dinner table talk in many a Kisii homestead growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. As a young man, I probably identified with Kikuyus because of the misplaced Bantu kinship more than anything else.

However, a more intelligent nephew, more versed in Kenyan politics, schooled me about the origin of the Luo stereotypes, the historic marginalization of the Luo and other communities in Kenya, and how the Raila presidency would correct that.

This, and a fortuitous reading of a Sarah Elderkin profile about Raila, brought me into Railamania, starting an unconditional love affair, where Raila would never do anything wrong, swearing a lifetime allegiance to Raila, his politics, and everything he stood for.

I loved his charisma. His vitendawilis.

His genuine, burning desire for a prosperous Kenyan. His sacrifices. His willingness to always build bridges. His cosmopolitan approach to politics. Where President Kibaki surrounded himself with a few Kikuyus and a few odd Merus, a Raila lineup in 2007 (and in all elections he has contested) was the face of Kenya.

I remember with shame that night Kibaki was sworn in at night with a lot of shame. We voted and we were cocksure that we would defeat Kibaki. I spent that night with my aforementioned nephew, discussing and dissecting politics, and we slept in the wee hours of the morn, Raila leading with over a million votes.

At some point in the next day, some jokes started playing out on national television. Some stupid mischief. It was a twist in the tale of the elections that we had not anticipated. What came to be known as Tharaka Nithi.

Within a few short hours, Raila’s victory was overturned, and the chaos that ensued, regardless of what you believe in, were spontaneous, and whatever premeditated violence and retaliatory attacks that would follow, built on the spontaneous anger of the electoral theft. It was the lowest moment in our country. And Kibaki, who four years earlier had dishonoured the 2002 MOUs, precipitating the violence, became in my eyes, the worst president Kenya has ever had, until of course, William Ruto happened.

My kinsmen were killed, maimed, their property stolen, plundered, and burnt down. In Kericho, south Rift, all the way to Molo, to Eldoret, and sadly in Kisumu, we were not spared, despite an overwhelming majority of Kisiis having voted for ODM.

We sat in elder brother’s room observing all these things, elders in our communities organising brave chinkororos to go help folks in Borabu who were being butchered. The pain and anguish of my people still sends shivers down my spine.

Veteran Kisii musician, Sagero, best captured and summed up our experience in IDP camps in his song, Omokimbizi; a song so poetic, potent, painful, soulful; it captures the essence of Kisiiness, in a way I cannot translate to anyone.

Every Kisii cries when that song plays and can sing it word for word. Because, the song makes you cry, laugh, cry again, pose to think about the lost souls, weep, gnash your teeth how we were punished, all those lynchings, and in the end, the song celebrate the resilience of Kisiis.

We grudgingly accepted his statesman act to share his victory with Kibaki, where he was given breadcrumbs and spent the next four years grumbling about mistreatment. We vicariously felt his pain, and all the contempt at the hands of Kibaki’s henchmen was a stab on our collective wounds.

We cried in shame anytime we were reminded about nusu mkate, and boy, how some of my Kikuyu friends have laughed at me and the nusu mkate politics. We were always being reminded that we don’t belong in Kenya. Remember the excitement that greeted David Ndii’s article that called for parts of Kenya to secede?

In 2013, I had hoped that Raila would resign and pass on the baton, maybe to Mudavadi, or Kalonzo. In the end, he ran, and we said, “This is time for a clean slate”. He would have a chance to govern independently, might as well as try him. Mudavadi left us.

I had immense faith in the Kenyan people that they would not elect two war criminals to office. The two were clinically incompetent, one being a drunk, irresponsible heir to the founding president’s empire, and the other a corrupt, lying, inept, arriviste, with no moral scruples whatsoever. In 2013, I knew that Uhuru would be more interested in restoring the Kenyatta empire to be the richest family in Africa, and Ruto would only amass the maximum possible campaign cash for 2022.

In the end, the Kikuyu-Kalenjin hegemony prevailed. I knew we were going to lose two decades, just like that, even as we joked about kumera kumera, and my Kikuyu friends told me in no uncertain terms:“NO MORE NUSU MKATE”. I suffered that private grief where you know you are right, like seeing a good girl pick the thug in a party, and you can see the deadbeat of the man disappearing on her, and her becoming a bitter s!ngle mom.

Between 2013-17, we did not have a government, just pure pilferage, as the two engaged on who would steal the most, and even the first Eurobond, some Sh 200 billion, disappeared and to date, the auditor general has no idea where the cash went.

In 2017, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about Raila Odinga. Again, I had hoped that good sense would prevail, and he would let Mudavadi or Kalonzo run. But he was a contender, and I was still spellbound by charisma. He ran a good campaign. Maybe he won.

But the presidential election was annulled, making us trust and believe in our constitution. In 2013, Dr. Willy Mutunga dismissed Raila’s election petition the way you dismiss a bothersome child: curtly, and we lost faith in the Judiciary. In 2017, Maraga restored that faith. But then, we had a mock, birthday election where Raila’s voters absconded and Kenyatta won the election by 100 percent. We swore Raila in as the people’s president. Barely a month later, I am walking down Harambee Avenue, checking my phone, to see Raila grinning with Uhuru: handshake.

I was deflated. It felt like all that election boycott stuff, that well-choreographed swearing in, were all part of a long con game. And my love affair with Raila started to wane. I immediately saw Raila for who he was: An insider, a double agent, controlled opposition, and a man with insatiable hunger for power, money and all the glory. It felt like learning a terrible secret about a crush you have pedestalized all your life. At some point, you will be told something about your crush, that will crash you for good, and even kill all the sexual thoughts you may have entertained about them.

In the fullness of time, rumors emerged. How Ruto had sabotaged Uhuru in their first term. And why the government never worked for a day between 2013-17. Like in 2007/08, I grudgingly accepted the handshake. I supported the BBI dream, loved the work Uhuru did, especially in the Coast, on roads, electricity, and the two became two good statesmen in my eyes. I accepted that our country is flawed, and if the rich are to have their way, then, we, the poor, could at least grab something while at it. BBI was defeated. But up to 2022, Uhuru and Raila became statesmen in my eyes, and will remain so.

Uhuru became the best president Kenya has ever had, because, by supporting Raila (assuming he was genuine, and I have been assured countless times by insiders that he was genuine), he intended to end one of the most nonsensical political rivalries in the country; Luo-Kikuyu animosity, regardless of the oaths and all the bad blood has never made sense.

The two communities don’t share a border, or any direct competition for resources (state power is a different ballgame altogether). They don’t even share the means of production, and they are so dissimilar, so different from each other that the competition between the two has a certain hollowness to it. Uhuru confronted this historical anomaly, and had he succeeded, and handed the power outside the Kikuyu-Kalenjin incompetent chokehold of statecraft, he would have gone down the annals of our history as the greatest statesmen. Still, I gave him a generous B+ for trial.

In 2022, I still hoped that someone different, like Mukhisa Kituyi, or Kivutha Kibwana, would rise to the occasion. We all know what happened to Mukhisa.

I wanted to sit out the 2022 elections. But a senior political friend, an aspirant for the Nairobi Gubernatorial seat, urged me to go and vote for Raila one last time. And I even got to work with the Youth Council as an observer, and I knew, for the last time ever, like Messi in the 2022 World Cup, Raila would win, and despite his advanced age, he would wipe away our tears. If he won, I didn’t expect that he would deliver, but neither did I expect that he would be incompetent like Ruto.

In the end, the unthinkable happened. Ruto lied his way to power. And people believed in him. He nearly fooled me, but I have followed the guy since 1992. And I can assure you, always study the history of the aspirant. By the time they vie, they are the sum total of their previous lived years. And Ruto’s CV is the worst, when reviewed objectively.

Like in all the previous years, I had hoped that Raila would retire to Bondo in the aftermath of 2022. And leave us alone. Again, I was wrong. He couldn’t save us. I had hoped he would become a statesman who only issues a statement once or twice a year on pressing national issues.

But like a bad nightmare, he is still around. I get sick to think that Ruto may front him to spoil votes and give him another term. I can’t put it past Raila. He is cheap.

Sometime in 2023, or early this year, we had another handshake. In the guise of the AU chairmanship. They flew all the way to Western Uganda. I was ashamed that Kenya now takes political advice from Museveni, no shade.

This time around, his handshake was ill-timed and ill-advised and, although historically incorrect, the blood of the Gen Zs who died will always be on his hands. Him and Ruto. Chronologically, his handshake with Ruto preceded the Gen Z protests. Gen Z would have used him as an ally in their revolution. This was the time we would have loved him, like Samson, one last time, to be on our side.

In the end, his personal dream of becoming the AU chair prevailed.

And if the grapevine is right, he saved us from the anarchy of the Gen Z protests that may have been infiltrated by the wrong agents. For this, I am grateful.

I will always appreciate the role he has played in the elite bargains that have preserved the sanctity of the Kenyan state since 1997. But, as Chinua Achebe said, the Kenyan elite (really barbarians) have taken too much for the owner to notice. And the recent dalliance of Ruto-Raila-Uhuru spelled the end of my love affair for Raila. This should be the end of KANU-The 1992-class, as we know it.

Kenya now needs new and fresh voices. The barbaric elite have consumed every single resource we have and we have nothing left for our children.

In the intervening 17 years I have loved Raila, he has metamorphosed from decent politician, to a national leader, to a statesman, to a guest who stayed too long at a party. He has his democratic right to do as he pleases. By joining the Ruto government, and part of the Luo intelligentsia taking it as the right comeuppance to deal the Kikuyu a fatal blow, I understand the self-preservation by all parties at play.

Except that, you can short-change a Luo in Kenyan politics, but never a Kikuyu. Uhuru without any ounce of shame fronted three Kikuyu has-beens as his cabinet nominees (and Kikuyus, notably bloggers would never raise hell, like they did when Raila joined Ruto), and Raila on his part, even while ignoring my community, managed to throw a Suba, a Swahili, and a Luhya when called to select his “team of experts”.

KCB bank, Police blasted for cover up in attempted murder by a bank official!

All the present political leaders are devoid of any imagination of how to turn the country around. No country advances with the likes of Kabogo or Joho leading critical ministries. None, whatsoever.

Into the future, we need a transition generation, one that can eat but still do something for the people. In the future, the right team may come; one that will work without stealing.

A stupid, if moronic, person may ask: what stops the talented folk from rising to the occasion, but we don’t have to engage that kind of nonsense here.

I will always love Raila. He will always hold a special place in my heart. But that is Raila Odinga up to June 2024. I am done with him. And I know many who don’t necessarily hate or despise him. I know the many who fell out with him because of the Gen Z maandamano.

I write this, cognizant of the poor political choices of the Kikuyu have subjected us to. We have to call them out, even at the risk of losing good friends. The thought they may elect Rigathi Gachagua to punish Ruto is sickening. Don’t do that.

The uncalled for disappointment in Raila and Luos joining the government by some sections of the Kikuyu intelligentsia is dishonesty and foolish. Luos are not the designated opposition in Kenya. I totally understand why some Luos take it as poetic justice to support Ruto, if only to teach Kikuyus a lesson. But this is old politics, and Kenya has to move on from this.

How history moves forward is always imperfect. There are sudden good turns, and there are prolonged periods of anguish. But a people must decide, like Kenyans did in 2002 to chart a different path.

I am done with Raila.

I wish him all the best with the AU thing. And I hope he can step out of our national politics for good. Let him be the father who passes on the baton, not one who dies intestate, leaving his family wrangling over inheritance.