Former Prime-Minister and presidential candidate Mr. Raila Amolo Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta are two paradoxical doctrines. You can’t mention both of them in the same breath. Not unless you’re insinuating that they are co-presidents or one is president and the other deputy. The two guys don’t share same political and economic ideologies. Their approach to life and politics is different. As far as west is from East, so is the gap between the two gentlemen. President Uhuru Kenyatta presides over all instruments of power. But Raila Odinga derives his power from the people.
Yet, reading Mr. Macharia Gaitho’s opinion in the Daily Nation entitled: “Next time the people protest against MPs, the Executive should step aside”, you get the sense that the two gentlemen are being compared alongside each other as firsts among the equals in the executive arm of the government. On who should “discipline” our MPs for their greed to plunder public resources, Mr. Gaitho rightfully asserts: “President Kenyatta must go beyond meek and sterile admonitions to bluntly tell the Jubilee coalition MPs to abandon their pay demands.”
But Mr. Gaitho falls short when he asserts that “Mr. Raila Odinga could do the same with the Cord coalition MPs who have so shamelessly abandoned their primary calling to team up with the governing party legislators in the looting and plunder mission.” That is being politically correct but factually incorrect. Although CORD MPs are reprehensible as are their sisters in crime, the Jubilee MPs; it’s president Uhuru primary responsibility to reign in on the rogue parliament and protect his legacy.
Moreover, the fallacious doctrine of “tyranny of numbers” handed Uhuru a majority of lawmakers in parliament. By that virtue alone, a bill cannot be passed in parliament without Uhuru’s blessings. But a bill can pass in parliament without Raila’s blessings.
Raila is merely an ordinary citizen only that he is VIP. Besides, it’s Uhuru’s legacy that is at stake not Raila’s. At the end of the day, people will not judge Uhuru presidency by what Raila did or didn’t do. They will judge Uhuru’s legacy by what he did or didn’t do. That’s why I believe you can’t mention Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta in the same breath. The two are diametrically opposed to each other as far as power and governance is concerned.
By Jacktone Ambuka, a Kenyan residing at State College Pennsylvania, USA.
