Raila Outwitted Mt. Kenya Mafia

Politically Raila is equal to Mwai Kibaki. Constitutionally Kibaki is head and shoulders above Agwambo, but only as a figurehead. Governmentally they paddle in the same canoe. This is the position Kenya is in today because of Raila’s ability to outwit the Mount Kenya Mafia, which has been constantly stabbing him in the back every time he comes to some agreement with Mwai Kibaki. Raila has learnt how to deal with the Gema sharks after a bitter lesson that threw him out of governmental powers in 2005 though he still remained politically very powerful.

This is not the first time Kibaki and Raila have established a political agreement. When they made the first attempt before the 2002 general elections, they signed the now infamous MoU which created the post of an Executive Prime Minister for Raila. The many political parties that formed Narc to oust Kanu from power were to be guided by the Summit made up of Moody Awori as its chairman and George Saitoti, Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Kipruto arap Kirwa, Charity Ngilu, Mwai Kibaki and Michael Wamalwa as its members.

If the Summit was not dissolved by the Mt. Kenya Mafia soon after Mwai Kibaki was first sworn in as the third President of Kenya, the chances would have been the current strong coalition Government would have been established as long ago as 2003. The Narc Government would have grown into the kind of a Grand Coalition we have today. But the Gema leaders around Mwai Kibaki would hear nothing about the Summit. They also did not want the Constitution changed to create the post of a prime Minister despite the existence of the MoU.

Political animosity between Raila Odinga and the Gema group around Mwai Kibaki started at that time when a handful of extremely rich people from Central Province claimed that the Summit could not be above the Cabinet. At hat time John Michuki, who was the Minister for Transport and Communication, said the Summit should be dissolved because its continued existence undermined the Presidency. His son in law, who was the Mukurwini MP, Mutahi Kagwe, said there was no need for constitutional changes because Mwai Kibaki should be allowed to continue ruling Kenya for five years under the old constitution which made a demigod out of the President.

In an article published by The Standard on April 5th, 2003, I condemned the statements by the two and said: The statements by these two leaders are in poor taste and contribute to a public disservice which threatens the unprecedented co-operation and unity among Kenyan leaders that made Narc win the elections.

The perilously arrogant statements from the Central Province MPs resembled the conceited Kanu braggadocio which led to its downfall. The people could then see that the statements by Gema leaders were an uncomfortable blend of power hunger and disregard for wananchi’s feelings which were not a particularly appealing combination. Wananchi, who backed Narc to remove Kanu from power, could at that time see that things were not shaping up as they expected. There were practical and moral problems embedded in the Narc crisis. What seemed to bother most Kenyans at that time were the new jingoistic Mount Kenya Mafia’s ways of interpreting events even when their methods went against the moral and honest spirit of co-operation between political leaders from all corners of the country.

Naturally, there were serious practical hurdles to jump before the clique’s ambition could be fulfilled. If they needed to remain in power they had to be supported by the majority of Members of Parliament who at that time did not seem to be delighted by the trend to have Gema people dominate in almost all important Government positions. Indeed the entire political scenario put the power clique around Kibaki out of balance as it was typified by parliamentary rebellion which forced the government to withdraw some vital Bills from the order paper.

To many people the vitriol spewed by Michuki and Kagwe showed they harboured political ambition which was occasionally unleashed by recklessness in their speech. Wananchi were eager to see which of the Narc leaders would have the decency, integrity and honour to uphold the unity among the people and which ones among them would exhibit a diminutive mentality that would disregard human decency that required them to honour promises made to the masses of Kenya.

The squabbles in Narc proved that the Government was not functioning the way the coalition expected it to and many Kenyans were surprised when there was not even a time line on how the new party was to be reorganized. The failure of the Summit to meet and sort out Narc problems had influenced opinion right across the country in such a manner as to threaten to erode the goodwill they had so far succeeded to establish. To many Kenyans the objective of a few people around Kibaki was not only to accumulate power but to hijack Narc - a political task they could hardly achieve without the co-operation of the Summit.

It was obvious that the Narc coalition was so much concerned about winning the 2002 election that it paid little attention to post-election settlements. Little did anyone suspect that the Mount Kenya group would run the show after victory. But if that regime was to survive the crisis it was going through then it had, as much as possible, to involve all the original leaders of Narc. Wananchi wanted to see a hybrid administration running the country when the people were engaged in the process of reshaping the constitution along the lines recommended by Prof Yash Pal Ghai.

Ghai had created a constitutional revolution and made Kenyans ponder the question of governance. With every appointment announced by Kibaki, therefore, came an elaborate collection of ethnicity data by the people. This was done to enhance an early identification of any tendency of favouring any group. Among other things, the evaluation proved that the people who had in the past vehemently opposed Raila Odinga’s leadership in Nyanza were favourably considered by Kibaki’s administration for top jobs. These included Ndolo Ayah, who had always been a staunch Kanu supporter, and Dr Shem Ochuodho, who had refused to follow Raila in his short association with Daniel arap Moi’s Kanu. This also proved Kibaki did not rely on Raila’s guidance in appointing people from Nyanza to high government positions. Kibaki’s unilateral appointments were of course protected by the constitution but in some quarter they were seen as a failure in democracy as they hijacked the collective responsibility of the Narc Summit.

It seemed that what was then euphemistically known as the ‘Six-Ms’ and other close friends of the President did not understand how angry wananchi became when they saw a concentration of members of one ethnic group in top public offices. The battles between factions in Narc never ended when leaders continued to look at all appointments from an ethnic point of view. And the fight was intensified when the constitutional conference began.

Yet this game of ethnic favoritism was started by Jomo Kenyatta himself, and then perfected by Daniel Moi. People hoped it would be ended by Mwai Kibaki. But the country was shocked during Kibaki’s first term to see the appointment of elders of questionable modern management skills getting very important jobs. The new bosses almost all came from around Mt. Kenya. This made the Bomas constitutional conference think more of devolution of powers through a prime minister rather than supporting a strong unitary government under a powerful president. The country was run by an administration that had so many differences within it. The appointment of friends of the President to important positions also created a big split within Narc.

So when Kofi Annan came to Kenya to mediate peace following the post election clashes of last year, Raila had the hindsight of what really went wrong with Narc. This time he made sure the position of a Prime Minister was not only made into a statutory law but also incorporated in the Constitution itself. In that way he really outwitted the Mt. Kenya Mafia.