Kenyatta-Odinga rivalry replayed

During Friday’s initial appearance at the International Criminal Court, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta was keen to highlight that he occupies the position courtesy of the “duly elected” President of Kenya.

With the history of the conflict that resulted from the 2007 presidential election results, the statement was widely seen as a dig at Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who believes the election was stolen.

The stark difference in their circumstances was captured on Wednesday evening. A few hours before Mr Kenyatta flew to The Netherlands, Mr Odinga went on live television to express solidarity with victims of the violence that Mr Kenyatta and five others are accused of sponsoring. He called for prayers for the internal refugees and a fair trial for the Ocampo Six.

The ICC cases have rekindled memories and a repeat of age-old rivalries between the families of founding President Jomo Kenyatta and first Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, which have been central players in Kenya’s politics for decades.

This time round, the protagonists are their scions, Raila and Uhuru. And, as in the period after independence, the combatants have dragged their ethnic groups along.

Their fathers were entangled in vicious ideological fights that saw Mr Odinga sacked as Vice-President in what opened the ground for a battle between the Kikuyu and Luo power elite that persists to date. 

The feeling among the Luo was that the Kikuyu elite around President Kenyatta were determined to block them from obtaining the presidency.

The debate in the Luo Nation over the 2007 presidential election took a similar tone.

Four decades later, the two families are still at war but, ironically, this time the Kenyatta family is accusing the Odingas of conspiring with foreigners to lock them out of power.

The political wheel appears to have turned full circle: It was Raila’s father who insisted that Kenya would not accept independence without Mzee Kenyatta who would then be released from Kapenguria and become President.

But in 2002, Raila jeorpadised Uhuru’s State House bid when he led a dramatic walkout from Kanu and endorsed Mr Kibaki, the then National Alliance of Kenya leader, who went ahead to defeat Mr Kenyatta in the presidential election. 

Now the younger Kenyatta is determined to block Jaramogi’s son from winning power. In recent political rallies, Mr Kenyatta has accused Mr Odinga of using Luis Moreno Ocampo, the ICC chief prosecutor, to eliminate him from the next presidential election.

The ICC is an independent court, and the prosecutor is required to carry out investigations independently.

At recent “prayer” rallies, Mr Kenyatta declared the PM to be his main enemy, accusing him of being the principal instigator of the post-election violence.

“Ithui tutikoragwo na thina na andu a Nyanza, tiga kimundu kimwe, na ni mukiui (We don’t have a problem with the people of Nyanza, but with one man, and you know who he is),” he told a rally in Githunguri a week ago.

“Mr Ruto and I were not vying for president in 2007; how can we be said to have been the masterminds, yet it was Mr Odinga who refused to go to court and instead called for mass action, which was the genesis of the killings and displacement of hundreds of thousands of people?” he told another rally in Bomet.

Main enemy

During his visit to Jaramogi’s mausoleum in 2009, President Kibaki called for unity between the Kikuyu and the Luo. He said history shows that the country moves forward whenever the two work together.

Former Subukia MP Koigi wa Wamwere says the ICC prosecutions have stoked tensions between the two communities.

According to Mr Wamwere, some communities are “unable to comprehend Luo leaders’ exception from prosecution” and accused the suspects of using their communities as a shield.

“They are saying our other enemy is Raila whom (US) President Obama wants as President of Kenya and Ocampo will therefore not indict him. This is why Ocampo has not indicted Raila and Anyang’ Nyong’o for mass action or violence. They ask why propagators of mass action escaped Ocampo’s noose.”

Prof Nyong’o, the ODM secretary-general, was instrumental in calling for mass action after the elections.

Human rights lawyer Maina Kiai says some of the reactions to the ICC process have been “quite frightening”.

“Mass action is not a crime and will never be a crime. Mass action is, in fact, guaranteed now by our new Constitution, and also by international law. Mass action is not a call to violence ... Mass action is simply peaceful protest.”

The continuing political exchange between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga bears a resemblance to the rivalry between their fathers.

And, in a sense, recent calls for Kikuyu unity which culminated in the declaration of the deputy prime minister as the community’s political leader are vaguely reminiscent of events after the 1969 assassination of independence nationalist Tom Mboya, when President Kenyatta rallied his Kikuyu community behind him.

Created animosity

The Mboya assassination created animosity between the Luo and the Kikuyu.

To counter the growing anti-Kikuyu sentiment, says Mzee Odinge Odera, who was once Jaramogi’s speech writer, President Kenyatta organised “massive oathing ceremonies to bide the ‘House of Mumbi’ together”.

A 1969 issue of Time magazine described the oathing as ominous.

“The Government of Kenya is under Kikuyu leadership, and this must be maintained,” the oath takers pledged, according to the magazine.

“No uncircumcised leaders will be allowed to compete with the Kikuyu. You shall not vote for any party not led by the Kikuyu. If you reveal this oath, may this oath kill you,” oath takers were told.

The ugly side of the Kenyatta-Jaramogi animosity resulted in the October 25, 1969 shooting of Kisumu residents during a confrontation between President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga during the opening of the “Russian Hospital” (New Nyanza General Hospital).

The President and Mr Odinga, who had been expelled from Kanu and formed opposition Kenya People’s Union, exchanged harsh words, a scuffle broke out and, as the hostile crowd advanced on the dais, presidential security guards opened fire, leaving more than 10 people dead as the presidential motorcade sped away.

President Kenyatta’s visit to Kisumu came barely three months after the death of Mr Mboya.

“The Mboya assassination was a turning point,” said Mzee Odinge, the author of My Journey with Jaramogi, Memoirs of a Close Confidant.
KPU slogans

On arrival in Kisumu, Mzee was greeted with jeers and chants of “ndume, ndume” the KPU slogans. Placards asking, “Where is Tom (Mboya)?” were also brandished.

The jeers infuriated the President, who threatened Jaramogi with detention, describing him as a “good-for-nothing noisemaker”.

Mzee Kenyatta declared that “enemies of Uhuru (independence)” would be “crushed like locusts”.

Two days later, Jaramogi and other KPU leaders were arrested in a dawn swoop and detained. President Kenyatta never returned to Kisumu until his death in 1978.

That the sons of independent Kenya’s two most powerful politicians would be at loggerheads many years later is a case of history repeating itself.

The Prime Minister has been pushing for the trial of suspects at The Hague due to what he says is Kenya’s failure to set up a local special court while sections of government sympathetic to the Ocampo Six have been calling for deferral of their cases.

Insults were said to be the former President’s stock-in-trade, and if Uhuru’s speeches at the rallies are anything to go by, he is a chip off the old block.

“Riu tondu atindaga akiuga ni tunyuaga muno-ri, no anga tunyuaga na muka? Na tondu atindaga akiuga tuthii Hague ri, Hague iyo ni ya nyina? Hague ni kwa nyukwa guku ugutinda ukiina? (Now that he (Raila) keeps describing some of us as drunkards, do we go drinking with his wife? And now that he keeps telling us to go to The Hague, is that Hague his mother’s? Is The Hague your mother’s place for you to keep singing about it?),” he said at the Githunguri rally.

While it is difficult to predict the future relations between the two leaders and by extension their communities, one thing is clear; Mr Odinga and Mr Kenyatta will greatly influence the outcome of next year’s General Election.

– By Emeka Mayaka-Gekara