The much anticipated high profile tour of Nyanza region by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his sworn political foe –turned friend, Raila Odinga , is one rare gesture out of the ordinary.
Only last year, Mr Kenyatta would not have set foot in Luo Nyanza region, without heavy security deployment and eruption of ugly drama, mostly leading to loss of innocent lives.
That today, Mr Odinga’s supporters, who boycotted the repeat presidential poll last October and whose protest rallies were violently dispersed by forces of Mr Kenyatta’s administration, are warming up to the President’s visit, is mind-boggling.
The unity pact between the President and Opposition leader is indeed a gesture out of the ordinary, which has won accolades from local political leaders and world leaders, including America’s 44th President, Barack Obama, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa among others.
According to Mr Odinga’s own confession, the National Super Alliance (Nasa) had mapped out a strategy that was going to make Kenya ungovernable.
Speaking during a recent television interview, Mr Odinga revealed that his backers had plotted to burn portraits of the President replacing them with his own in all public places, offices and business premises.
Mr Odinga explains that the Nasa-affiliated counties, mainly in Western, Nyanza, Eastern and Coastal regions, as well as parts of the Rift Valley, were going to disengage “from Uhuru’s central government” where they would initiate parallel tax collection and govern themselves as an autonomous entity.
One of the brains behind the plot is Dr David Ndii, an economist and Nasa strategist, who spearheaded the People’s Assemblies initiative.
Already the Nasa friendly counties had kick-started the process of passing motion for the creation of an alternative avenue for the people’s voice.
By the time Dr Ndii suspended the initiative on March 12, following the handshake, 19 counties had passed the bill that would have paved way for political autonomy of Nasa-friendly counties.
Mr Odinga explains he decided to climb down upon realisation the strategies being mooted would make the country ungovernable. There was much suffering already, including loss of life owing to police brutality and a deteriorating economy, and “there was need to put the country first and save the nation from this suffering”.
The reasons offered by Mr Odinga, coupled with President Kenyatta’s during the much publicised handshake best capture the positive persuasion behind the Kenyatta-Odinga pact.
“The handshake has greatly facilitated free association and collaboration across parties as well as the central and county governments, which is a good thing for governance and economic development,” says Busia Governor Sospeter Odeke Ojaamong.
Speaking to Sunday Nation in Busia town, the governor noted the handshake had magically erased the stigma associated with meetings of hitherto political foes. Only last month, on the 20th, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) allied governor, played host to Deputy President William Ruto at his private residence. The two leaders held a closed door meeting in the company of local MCAs and Foreign Affairs Chief Administrative Secretary Ababu Namwamba.
Following the meeting, Mr Ojaamong, who had earlier been arraigned in court for alleged misappropriation of Sh8 million from the county’s kitty, was accused by some for allegedly defecting from the Odinga-led party and declaring support for Mr Ruto’s 2022 presidential bid.
“Mr Ruto was officiating a funds drive at a school (Kolanya Secondary) not far from my homestead. I had no reason to snub him – at least not in this handshake season engineered by my own party leader,” explained the governor.
Saying he was flanked by his MCAs, Mr Ojaamong clarified the meeting with the DP was “an open affair”, which accorded his team opportunity to share the needs of Busia people with the central government through Mr Ruto.
“As governors from the opposition, the one major advantage of the handshake is that it has given us opportunity to freely associate with senior officers of the central government for purposes of getting goodies to our people. And we truly thank our party leader for the prudent idea of entering into a pact with Mr Kenyatta,” says Mr Ojaamong.
Also swimming in the spirit of the handshake are legislators, both in the Senate and Parliament, who are quickly changing allegiance in the name of the newfound collaboration. One such notable example is the vocal Malindi Town MP, Ms Aisha Jumwa of the Orange party, who has thrown her weight behind Mr Ruto’s presidential bid.
Hiding behind the handshake, Ms Jumwa argues that in the same vein that her party boss has opted to work with the President, “hata sisi hapa chini, tuna uhuru wa kuchangamana na wenzetu wa upande ule mwingine katika ligi yetu ndogo (we too, at this lower level, have the liberty to associate with colleagues from the opposing side).”
Yet still other combative politicians like Gatundu South MP, Moses Kuria, have had to adjust their approach in tune with the current political climate.
For a man, who has virtually made a career out of spewing personalised abuses at Mr Odinga and members of his family, it was addling for the Jubilee-allied politician to be accorded a heroic welcome to Kisumu town on July 21, where he hit out at critics of the handshake.
And with unity of purpose, coupled with little opposition from the Opposition, the Kenyatta administration has been able to forge ahead with its fight against corruption.
National Assembly Leader of Minority and Orange party chairman, Mr John Mbadi, for instance, singles out Mr Ojaamong’s case, saying “although he is from our party, we did not rush to his support with claims that Jubilee was politicising the war on graft”.
Political pundits have also been surprised at Mr Odinga’s apparent laid back stance, when the government recently flattened houses of residents of Nairobi’s Kibera estate, to pave way for the construction of Sh2 billion link road.
The exercise rendered over 20,000 families homeless. Mr Odinga served as area MP of Kibera, a strong opposition zone, for two decades and ordinarily he would have been quick to unleash a barb at the State. Mr Odinga’s apparent lukewarm stand on such issues is viewed by some as a negative effect of the handshake.
In fact Mr Odinga’s co-principal at Nasa, Mr Musalia Mudavadi, observes that the handshake has created confusion among opposition legislators over how to conduct parliamentary business.
Critics have pointed out that Nasa has, as a result of the newfound Kenyatta-Odinga camaraderie, abandoned its role of putting the government in check.
“Nasa is the official minority party in Parliament not the individual partner parties. Therefore as a team, our Nasa brigade in Parliament is under firm instructions to safeguard public interest when handling the Budget Appropriations Bill to protect Kenyans from a ravenous national Treasury.
So Nasa may appear less visible in the public sphere, but it is thriving at the institutional level,” the one time Vice President told Nation.
Nasa’s challenges notwithstanding, the biggest political casualty of the handshake is the ruling coalition Jubilee.
With Mr Odinga no longer a target of attack by Jubilee politicians, the ceasefire on the Kenyatta-Odinga hostilities has shifted the battles to the Jubilee house.
