Raila's journey through political wilderness to elusive promised land

Raila Odinga's quest for this promised land has been bumpy and winding.  From being clandestinely sneaked out of his motherland 66 years ago into wintry Europe where he was taught in strange tongues, the lion of Kenya's politics has seen it all. 

He left at a time when his father was viewed as a public enemy by the colonial government,  studied in Europe during a very trying moment, the height of the cold war, only to return to a country that had lionised his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga as Kenya's first Vice President but was soon after spat out by Jomo Kenyatta's government into political cold that would characterise the rest of his life., 

A teenager Raila traveled to Germany after taking a flight to Cairo from Dar es Salaam and was briefly detained in Cairo for lack of a passport. The colonial government had declared that none of Jaramogi's sons would be admitted into any Kenyan schools, no matter how well they performed.

Raila’s elder brother, Oburu’s efforts to join Alliance High School had been thwarted by then Principal, Edward Carey Francis who told his father that he had been warned by his peers not to accept the boy.

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After studying mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule "Otto von Guericke" in Magdeburg, German Democratic Republic, he obtained the degree of Master of Sciences and returned to Kenya in 1968 as a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Nairobi. By this time Jaramogi was a bitter government critic. 

He resigned in 1972 to join the Kenya Bureau of Standards and was deputy director of the bureau. His first face-off with the government was in 1982 when he was arrested in connection with the attempted coup staged by elements of the defunct Kenya Air Force.

Raila was charged with treason, but the charges were withdrawn in March 1983 before the trial started and he was instead detained without trial under the Public Security Regulations.

And for almost six years, Raila was to remain in prison. He was released in February 1988 but rearrested seven months later and again detained under the Public Security Regulations in September.

His name was mentioned in several trials of people charged with sedition in connection with alleged membership of a clandestine opposition organization called the Kenya Revolutionary Movement (KRM).

Allegations were made that Raila was the leader of this organization, which was also alleged to have sent members for guerrilla training in Libya, although no violent incident was ever attributed to it.

Raila was never charged with any offence and his involvement with the KRM has never been clarified or proved by the government. He was released in June 1989.

Since then, Raila’s political life took a new trajectory, he could be arrested from time to time by the government and at some point fled into exile in 1991 when he escaped the then administration’s dragnet by crossing over to Uganda in a boat.

His encounters with the ‘authoritarian government’ generated an aura of intrigue about him and it was probably due to this that his political followers christened him "Agwambo", a Luo word for ‘Mystery or unpredictable and Jakom which means chairperson.

Others call him Tinga a Swahili word for tractor which was a symbol for his National Development Party (NDP).

Before forming his NDP, Raila had joined his father’s party The Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) Kenya where he had to struggle to shake off his father's shadow and the powerful allies. Jaramogi was unimpressed with his son's leadership skills at the time.

Although Jaramogi had entrusted the FORD K to Kijana Wamalwa, Raila believed it was he who was the right person to steer the party forward. When his father died in 1994 Wamalwa would become a vice president in 2002 and die in August 2003 in London while undergoing medical treatment.

“When Jaramogi died, he wanted to grab power un-procedurally. So, they are having a delegates’ meeting in Thika and a confrontation ensues on who should succeed his father,” said Amukowa Anangwe, professor of political science, in a past interview.

Wamalwa beat Raila in the contentious party elections marred with violence, precipitating a devastating tribal split within the party seeing Raila leave the party with a sizeable number of members of parliaments (mostly from Luo Nyanza) and joining the (NDP).

Raila took another bold move which political analyst Barrack Muluka argues defined Raila as “a bold person who knew what he wanted and was willing to pay the price for what he believed was right.”

 “Raila left the party and resigned from his position as Langata MP to run again in a by-election. That one act is what defined him. He was the first person to do that and not even a handful of politicians have done that till today.”

Raila’s start button in active politics started after his victory in the Langata Parliament seat at 47.

Later Raila tried his first stab for the Presidency in 1997 coming third with 665,725 votes behind former Presidents Daniel Moi and Mwai Kibaki.

Raila would then in the most unprecedented manner forge a working relationship with Moi in 2000 but two years later ahead of the general elections with his three NDP MPs joining Moi’s cabinet thus inaugurating the first coalition cabinet in the country’s history.

During his stint in Kanu, Raila’s eyes were fixed on succeeding President Moi and as the party’s Secretary-General, his gamble on joining Kanu failed to pay off after Moi chose Uhuru Kenyatta to succeed him as the party leader and Kanu’s presidential flag bearer in the 2002 general elections.

The ODM leader would leave Kanu with a host of influential politicians such as Kalonzo Musyoka, Najib Balala, Moody Awori and the late Prof George Saitoti.

“His quest for power has no limits. He wants more of it and he will circumvent constraints to the realization of the same. When he joined Kanu, his agenda was the same as he is doing it with Uhuru now; to get close to the power so that he can be facilitated to be president,” says Prof Anangwa added

After forming a government with Kibaki, he later led a rebellion against the Narc government after Kibaki reportedly failed to honor an MoU that called for a new constitution within 100 days of his government and made him a Prime Minister.

When the Kibaki administration came up with the 2005 referendum for a new Constitution, Raila teamed up with other Opposition leaders to oppose it and this saw the government losing by a 57 per cent to 43 per cent margin.

This gave Raila fertile ground to run for President in 2007 through the ODM party which had been birthed by the 2005 Opposition as those opposed to the new constitution were presented by ‘orange’ while pro-Constitution were represented by a banana.

However, in his journey to Canaan, he failed to unseat Kibaki in a controversial general election that led to the post-election clashes leading to a government of national unity.

 In yet another controversy surrounding Raila’s journey to power and as a pan-African, in 2011 he faced rebellion as a mediator in the Ivory Coast where post-election violence arose.

He had gone to the country after then African Union Commission chairperson Jean Ping picked him to mediate between Allsane Outtara who had won the elections and was endorsed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) while his rival Laurent Gbagbo refused to leave office.

The clashes led to the death of over 100 people and more than 1500 people displaced. But the Kibaki government refused to endorse him despite his arrival in the Ivory Coast.

Gbagbo’s team refused to meet Raila leading to Raila’s strong message against him. He had proposed stringent punishment that would require punishment such as financial sanctions and use of force, a statement that was later disowned by his administration where he served as Prime Minister.

In 2017, he tried his fourth time for the Presidency and was defeated but a year later, he shook hands with Raila after the much-touted handshake that saw him picked by Uhuru to be AU envoy for Infrastructure. Before then, he had led protests and swore himself as the People’s President.

Three years later, after unsuccessfully trying his luck for the fifth time, he led an onslaught against the President Ruto administration, a move that saw Ruto fight back to have Raila removed as the envoy.

He would later issue a hard-hitting statement against the African Union citing frustrations with its leaders in his quest to implement the visions of Infrastructure. He claimed AU members had become victims of foreign interference with leader’s inaction also helping to keep African in its ‘present condition’

However, in a true manifestation of the ironies of life, Ruto who was accused of engineering his removal became his staunch supporter in the race for African Union Commission chairmanship.

Analysts say although he has never ascended to Presidency, Raila’s father should be a happy man after watching his son contending for the AUC chairperson in a continental body he championed for where at one time, he had smuggled Oburu to the very same country to attend a Lancaster conference in 1962 against the wishes of the then Governor Patrick Renson.