Raila is the real deal for Africa

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga travels well in Africa. A couple of years ago, I was at a conference in Kigali, where he was giving a keynote address on infrastructure. He spoke passionately, without notes and relying on copious memory, about projects and their justifications.

His presentation was very well received and he got a cheer every time he rose to speak. If he was running for an elective post in Africa, his name recognition and personal popularity would make him quite formidable.

Most Kenyans seem to think that Mr Odinga would make a very good chairman of the African Union Commission, a job he recently declared an interest in and for which he is receiving support from the government. Nearly everyone wants him to get the job. But opinion is divided as to whether that is necessarily a good thing.

Many who don’t give a hoot about Mr Odinga but want his protection since he appears to be the only politician in the country who can stand up to the current regime, want him stay home and play fireman just in case the government becomes too much. Others are more generous; they think Mr Odinga deserves a break after frustrating losses in many presidential races and should go for the job.

Then there are the conspiracy theories about State House operatives manipulating the dynamic to introduce the candidacy of former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete as a broom to sweep out Mr Odinga and then leave a gap for some other Kenyan candidate. As a man of some experience, these to me sound like stories not of jaba but of muguka.

I’m in that group that thinks Mr Odinga deserves the job and is an excellent candidate. He needs no introduction to Africans, who admire his decades-long advocacy for human and political rights.

Mr Odinga is among the last of that generation of Africans who have an African perspective on most things. For him, it is an ideological orientation, not a fashion statement or PR stunt. He would be able to lobby African countries to take common positions on policy and projects that work for all.

Were Africa a federation, it would be one of the true superpowers, with a population of 1.4 billion, a $3.1 trillion economy and a mighty army. The forces of integration would unleash growth at a blistering pace and, within generations, it would be like India, China or Brazil.

As we got wealthier, we’d invest more in education and health, improving the quality of workers and boosting economic performance. Africa is poor, easy to control and milk as it is disjointed, Africans don’t know or visit each other and are more interested in other continents. It costs a hell of a more to visit your neighbour than abroad.

And here lies the risks to a Raila candidacy: There are forces, within and outside Africa, which might coalesce to defeat his ascendancy for the same reasons that they hate the idea of his being the President of Kenya: A man with independent intellectual and ideological legs and not given to taking orders.

Two more things: Raila knows things in Africa and Raila knows people in Africa. I think outside of the AU bureaucracy and African scholar, few have articulated the history and current dynamics of the continent’s issues more passionately than he does. Infrastructure is the key to uniting Africa. When Africans start to visit and trade with each other all over, you do not need a treaty creating a united Africa. Union by shared culture, language, marriage, friendship and trade is stronger than any piece of paper.

Mr Odinga, having shared platforms and friendships with many leaders in Africa, is one of Kenya’s best-connected statesmen on the continent. For a man who has never been Head of State, he counts many presidents and prime ministers, serving and retired, among his friends and collaborators. He, therefore, has the stature and respect of the Heads of State to build consensus and push issues of continental interest.

The biggest beneficiary of Mr Odinga’s candidature is, of course, the Kenya Kwanza regime; it removes from the chess board their most formidable opponent and likely rival in 2027. Mr Odinga’s absence is, of course, a risk to democracy, opening a window to the creation of a one-man dictatorship by weakening the Opposition. But it is also an opportunity for the emergence of a new generation of opposition politicians to be forged in the fire of ordeal politics.

My take? Go, Mr Odinga, travel the continent, taste a thousand soups and touch a million hearts.

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Femicide, the almost daily slaughter of women, is only a small part of gender crime. Going to a club is an ordeal for ladies, not to mention taking a matatu on some routes. This has been joined by crimes against children by cults, abusive parents and inattentive families, to create a real social mess in our society.

While we were away looking for money, some guy was slitting our women’s throats or kicking the babies across the room. Maybe we should spend more like tackling this than chasing the wind.

- Mr Mathiu, a former Editor-in-Chief of Nation Media Group, is a media consultant at Steward-Africa. [email protected].