History lessons Raila Odinga disregarded

NAIROBI: Is Raila Odinga a tactful politician, a luckless or reckless populist? A newspaper columnist once asked.

I revisit this in light of what has happened in the past two weeks following the long-coming resignation of Budalangi Member of Parliament Ababu Namwamba from ODM and the imminent implosion of the CORD coalition.

Since Mr Namwamba walked away from the man he has served loyally for nearly 10 years, what has followed is a chain reaction that has left many wondering what next for the doyen of Opposition politics.

A peep into the falling house of Raila perhaps came from the parting shot from Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula, who asked Mr Odinga to "stop imagining that he has Luhyas in his pocket.” It couldn’t have got worse than this.

Yet the maelstrom that Mr Odinga finds himself in is tinged with the feeling that he is getting a taste of his own medicine.

His political journey has benefited from chaotic disintegration that confronts him now. What goes around must surely come around.

For most of his political life, Mr Odinga has had to battle against a tide of ill-talk and perception about his past; that he is a rabble-rouser, the party breaker who walked out of parties if they did not accommodate his firebrand politics.

Or that he would rather it was him and not someone else leading.

Think about Mr Odinga’s dalliance with Kanu in 2002. There was no happy ending there. Kanu’s near death was a consequence of Mr Odinga’s foray into the party.

Or the death of Narc in 2003. Yet despite the fatal attraction he caused these parties, Mr Odinga repackaged himself and wormed his way into the people’s hearts, giving Mwai Kibaki a run for his money in the disputed 2007 presidential elections.

Actually, Mr Odinga’s past travails that include a will-breaking detention and a long and arduous career has won him over and proved his mettle.

A son of privilege, Raila has managed to portray himself as the defender-in-chief of the downtrodden. And that has worked for him.

His critics have however wondered how much he has done to the people of Kibera slums who formed a huge chunk of his voters for nearly two decades.

Think of the discarded 2002 MoU.

And think about the yet-to-be-revealed Kalonzo Musyoka 2013 MOU.

Yet there are moments when one has felt that Mr Odinga is on the right side of history.

Certainly, this is not one such time.

Always, Mr Odinga has looked like a man in a hurry to fix things. Nothing bad about that.

In the rush to get back at Mr Namwamba, Mr Odinga has ended up running a referendum on himself in the Luhya and although the jury is still out, I am not sure it has worked for him.

That could explain the near frenzy to throw everything at it. Does he stand a chance to salvage anything?
Looked at another way, I find Mr Odinga’s current predicament to be that of a man who failed to plan for his succession.

Any leader at some point is faced with a similar situation and usually the less prepared one is, the worse it gets.

It happened in Kanu in 2002, in Mwai Kibaki’s PNU in 2013.

All over the world, leaders prepare themselves for the hereafter.

It is simple yet complex and often many miscalculate.

To plan for one’s succession is an admission of man’s frailty, of the ephemeral nature of power and office.

It is to admit that we won’t be around for far too long.

Yet despite that, very few have devised ways to deal with this elephant in the room, not just Mr Odinga.

Across the border, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is still grappling with who between his wife, Janet and son should succeed him.

Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is in the horn of dilemma; whether to enthrone his wife Grace or hang on till the end.

Such prospects provide the leader with stark options; damn if you do, damned if you don’t.

Now back to Mr Odinga. ODM’s shambolic election of 2014 provided him with a chance to manage his succession.

He did not and he will rue the lost opportunity. Mr Odinga needed to have gone back to his base and fix the broken networks.

The grief caused by the men in black never quite healed given that Mr Namwamba was the biggest casualty.

Even he knew that the party post he got was on loan. And it was just a matter of time before the owners took it away.

Now, Mr Odinga finds himself in an unenviable situation.

He is confronted by two unpalatable options: Either to soldier on and hope that the euphoria sweeping across Western blows over; or he steps down as a precondition to get everybody into the fold and rallies his loyal troops behind them.

None of these look likely, but none is impossible.