Uhuru tour brought together past, present and future of Kenya politics

When fierce political foes turn zealous allies, as have President Kenyatta and Mr Raila Odinga, their supporters expect the entente to yield extravagant rewards for the protagonists and for themselves.

The euphoria that greeted President Kenyatta’s two-day visit to Mr Odinga’s Kisumu and Siaya county backyards, the bear hugs the two eagerly enveloped each other in and the public shows of camaraderie, therefore, were seen as a harbinger of greater things to come.

The tour to Kisumu, often the epicentre of fanatical and violent support for Mr Odinga, and Siaya, Mr Odinga’s native county, and also often hostile territory to President Kenyatta and his two predecessors, brought together the past, present and future of Kenya’s politics.

OPPOSITION POLITICS

In Kisumu in 1969, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the doyen of Kenya’s opposition politics, publicly took on founding President Jomo Kenyatta with whom he had fallen out hardly three years after independence. It was a fight that led to the destruction of Mr Odinga's political career and business.

Worse, it led to the marginalisation of the Luo from the mainstream of Kenya’s politics and development. In Kisumu on Thursday, the sons of Jaramogi and Old Jomo sought to exorcise the ghosts of the animosity of their fathers and their own by committing to building a new and united Kenya.

They painted a Kenya in which electoral fights do not lead to violence and one free of tribal hatred. Eureka! Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga fought viciously for the presidency in 2017 so much so that the latter declared the former an illegitimate president.

SECRET

Worse, in a treasonous act, Mr Odinga was crowned president and launched a resistance movement. But hardly a week after calling Mr Kenyatta's government a “malevolent dictatorship”, Mr Odinga on March 9 unashamedly entered a pact – whose details remain secret – with the President.

Both men needed each other. The President needed to govern; he was in office but not in power as uncertainty crippled business, livelihoods and day-to-day life.

Mr Odinga was running out of options and resources to sustain resistance, patience and steadfastness for the long haul. Kenyans wanted the two to end the impasse.

Suffice to point out that previously Mr Odinga desperately courted many Kikuyu politicians in his attempts at getting the presidency. These include Mr Charles Njonjo, the late Njenga Karume, Mr Nginyo Kariuki, Ms Ngaru Mumbi, Mr Tony Gachoka, Ms Rachel Shebesh and even Mungiki boss Maina Njenga.

PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION

In Mr Kenyatta he has eventually found the ally of allies and at a time when the presidential succession is a national obsession. On the tour in the minds of most crossed, even fleetingly, the unfulfilled presidential ambition of 73-year-old Mr Odinga.

Would the President endorse Mr Odinga for the presidency in 2022? Mr Odinga’s supporters argue that there is no better way for Mr Kenyatta to banish the ghosts of his father’s betrayal of Jaramogi than to back his son for the presidency in 2022.

What better way to atone for his father's, and by extension community's, sins against Mr Odinga's father, and by extension community, as well as Mr Mwai Kibaki's against Mr Odinga than for President Kenyatta to rally Mount Kenya people around Mr Odinga's presidential run in 2022!

SOCIALIST PARTY

Jaramogi refused the premiership from the British, proudly declaring “no Kenyatta, no independence”. Though Old Jomo named Jaramogi Vice-President in 1963, he looked the other way as his corner undermined the VP, and sanctioned the infamous 1966 Limuru Kanu conference.

The conference introduced regional vice-presidents to whittle down Jaramogi’s power. He quit and formed the Kenya People’s Union (KPU) which until 1992 was Kenya’s only ever registered, though later proscribed, socialist party.

SHOCK

Mr Kibaki was made President in 2002 by Mr Odinga who betrayed an earlier pact with Mr Simeon Nyachae to declare Mr Kibaki fit for the presidency at an Uhuru Park rally. Notorious for deploying silence as a weapon, President Kibaki binned and never mentioned the pre-poll seat sharing MoU he signed with Mr Odinga.

President Kenyatta has said he will shock many when he names his preferred successor. Nobody would be shocked if he anointed Deputy President William Ruto his heir. Therefore, many think the President meant he had somebody else in mind. Mr Odinga's base expects President Kenyatta to declare Mr Odinga his successor.

Opanga is a commentator with a bias in politics