Raila woos Coast with pledges
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has pledged to tackle problems facing the Coast region, and which have not been addressed by successive governments since independence.
These include landlessness, unemployment, marginalisation, poor infrastructure and the issue of the outlawed Mombasa Republican Council.
Addressing a rally at Likoni, Mr Odinga trumpeted his reformist credentials and the ideologies his Orange Democratic Party stands for, saying it was the best bet for Coast people to develop.
The ODM meeting was one of the two parallel rallies held in Mombasa, besides the one convened by his rival and former ally Musalia Mudavadi at Tononoka Grounds in Mvita (READ: Mudavadi promises to deliver fruits of devolution).
Mr Odinga said the history of independent Kenyan has been a catalogued by a perennial struggle between liberators and traitors and urged Coast people and Kenyans to stand with the former group to take the nation forward.
He described himself as belonging to the group of liberators that have relentlessly fought for reforms in Kenya.
This, he said, was the reason he has been a target of attacks from those who have betrayed the cause of the country’s nationhood.
“In ODM we carry the liberation flag. I want us to carry that to the top of the mountain,” Mr Odinga told the crowd.
He said that the concerns raised by MRC touching on historical injustices were the same he had fought for in his reformist struggle in the country.
In a bid to find a solution to these problems, the ODM leader said his party would convene a forum at which stakeholders from the coast, including groups like MRC, would meet to chart a way forward in realising the unmet needs of the Coast people.
Mr Odinga urged coastal people to turn out in large numbers and vote in the forthcoming elections.
He warned them that failure to vote would amount to handing over leadership to traitors who do not have interests of the nation at heart.
The meeting was attended by ministers, assistant ministers, MP and aspirants allied to ODM
