With confused and confusing plot, no one knows what to expect next
What you need to know:
- The arena is confused and confusing when Mr Odinga and the President gang up against the Deputy President.
This is confusing because Mr Odinga refuses to declare he is now in government.
Even if he doesn't, the question remains why he would play President against Deputy.
Mr Raila Odinga denies that politics has been confused and confusing since he and President Kenyatta publicly shook hands on their secret and exclusive contract on Kenya on March 9.
Indeed he calls those of us who see the arena as confused and confusing, blind and deaf. Then, he says, the law will soon change, Deputy President William Ruto apende asipende (likes it or not).
Intriguingly, playing political prefect he lays into Mr Ruto, accusing him of crisscrossing Kenya and dishing out money in premature campaigns and of boasting that he will be President in 2022.
Last, he supports President Kenyatta that a lifestyle audit is the surefire way of fighting rampant corruption in government. Yes, the agents of confusion are Mr Odinga, President Kenyatta and their secret deal on the Kenyatta II succession. Come let's have a look.
RAPPROCHEMENT
Why do Kenyans remember Shariff bin Nassir bin Taib? It was he who in 1988 declared that Kanu would change the law watu wapende wasipende. Those three words summed up the legal dictatorship that was single party rule. That is why Kenyans were aghast at Nassir’s pronouncement.
Isn't it confusing when Mr Odinga inherits Nassir’s mantle? Is it not confusing when he suggests he can resist government when he wants and switch sides as he wants but we cannot resist his point of view on change of the law?
It is confusing especially because Mr Odinga, Mr Ruto, President Kenyatta and former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka recently shook hands and forgave each other for their harsh language during last year’s General Election campaigns. It is confusing also because the rapprochement between the President and Mr Odinga was touted as ushering in peace and goodwill in the political arena.
PERJORATIVE
The arena is confused and confusing when Mr Odinga and the President gang up against the Deputy President and use similar pejorative terms to describe his movements around the country. This is confusing because Mr Odinga refuses to declare he is now in government. Even if he doesn't, the question remains why he would play President against Deputy.
To all intents and purposes, Mr Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) are not in the opposition. They have sold the opposition down the river. Even the out-of-depth Governor of Nairobi Gideon Mbuvi knows that there is no longer an opposition in Kenya. And, I said here before the March 9 cop out that we had a legislative dictatorship thanks to Jubilee’s crushing parliamentary majority.
Towards the end of February Mr Odinga, when addressing a meeting of top organs of ODM, appointed a task force to look into the declining performance of the party in last year’s General Election. This committee was supposed to table its report in 90 days. Obviously, ODM is now eager to attack the DP than talk about its declining poll performance.
PROPAGANDA
Obviously, that is confusing especially when ODM calls a meeting of top brass but says it cannot be about the DP’s growing support at the Coast hitherto an ODM heartland. Why would ODM sit on its hands as the DP lights a fire under its seat and in light of the shifting ground at the Coast which points to dwindling support? How can the arena not be confusing when the government says it is fighting corruption and the same government says the war on corruption is selective and aimed at the DP and when the government says nothing about fighting wanton wastage in government?
How, when the same government says it will not change the law? How when Mr Odinga says he and the President have agreed they will change the law but the President says he does not support change of the law? As I say, the DP always wins propaganda wars against Mr Odinga and that the DP knows how to frame issues.
RUBBERSTAMP
He knows how to campaign in such a way that both Mr Odinga and President cannot accuse him of not propounding government policy or propagating the Big Four Agenda. The two are intertwined. And look, Mr Ruto began campaigning to succeed President Kenyatta in 2013.
Is the Building Bridges Initiative team independent? How when Mr Odinga predicts what it will propose and prescribes how Kenyans will act on it tupende tusipende? It appears it is a rubberstamp for his secret deal with the President. And that is confusing because Kenyans do not know what the President and Mr Odinga are plotting.
