Win or lose, Raila Odinga's race at the AUC has tidings for both friend and foe at home

 

Raila Odinga speaking at the opening of Piny Luo Festival in Migwena Siaya. [Michael Mute, Standard]

His Nigerian biographer, Babafemi Badejo, characterized him as an enigma in Kenya’s politics. His Luo tribesmen agree. They have styled him as Agwambo, a mercurial character whom nobody really understands. They consider him strange, mysterious and lethal, like the legendary magic-making Gor Mahia, who lived in the 18th Century. 

True to this characterisation, the most predictable thing about this man, Raila Amolo Odinga, is that he is hard to predict. His most predictable attribute is that he is difficult to put down, whatever his circumstances. He is the maverick civic acrobat, who will do a complicated political summersault in mid-air, to give himself a new lease of life, even when a fatal fall was anticipated. Such is Raila Odinga, as he now gravitates towards an epochal defining moment.

It is a critical moment for Odinga the man and political operative, as well as for his country Kenya, and his native Luo compatriots.

Hold together

Indeed, it is also a redefining moment for the continent of Africa. Is the continent about to have this octogenarian as the CEO of its highest international entity? Raila just turned eighty in the ended week. Fifty-five of these years have been spent in active political space. They date back to his father’s detention by the Jomo Kenyatta government in October 1969, when he was suddenly thrust into critical decision-making spaces, a paltry 24-year-old.

Within this period, however, Raila has also learned to step out of his father’s shadow. He is his own man. He picks his own choices and leads his troops from the front. In the political arena, he commands a massive following. Few in Kenya, and indeed elsewhere in Africa, could boast of the kind of shots he calls. 

With Addis beckoning, however, which way Raila Odinga? Which way are his massive followers? Are his fanatical disciples about to find another messianic figure to lead them through the murky waters of Kenya’s politics? Or, are they going to be orphaned should their leader become the chair to the African Union Commission?

This is an executive position that would lock him away for at least four years. Will they hold together, or has the time to scatter come? Who benefits from Raila’s absence from the Kenyan political scene? Can it be as exciting as it has been over the past 30 years after his legendary father’s passing on, when he has been easily the most remarkable political operator on this landscape? 

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At 80, you will probably want to write him off as someone whose best years are behind him. You would want to see him preparing to hang his boots, and to pass on the baton to a political generation emerging from its salad days. Yet, this is the one time when all eyes are cast upon this maverick, as he gathers the moss, in preparation of a great leap towards the AUC Chair. The one question many are asking is, will he hack it and carry his enigmatic character to the heartland of African civic affairs? And if he does, will he bid local Kenyan politics the final goodbye? Will he stand aside and look on, quietly, as Kenya goes to the 2027 elections?

Political expediency

Some have speculated that he could resign in the midstream of his first of two four-year terms, to return to Kenya, to run for President. The union would, of course, find itself in an awkward place, if its CEO should quit within two years to run for office at home. Apart from throwing its activities into a spin, the African Union would also be awkwardly placed to send an election observer team to Kenya, to report on an election in which its immediate former CEO is running, after quitting in the midstream.

Such, however, are mostly futuristic questions. They might, or might not arise, in the coming months. Many AU members will nonetheless be weighing them carefully, as they make their last moment decision on how to cast their vote for the AUC chair next month. But they will also ask these questions, should Raila’s effort be successful.

Back home, focus remains on the roles that he has been playing. Is there one individual who has the drive, courage and charisma to step snugly into his shoes?

Raila’s absence from the local political scene is good for the Kenya Kwanza government. If anyone so badly wishes him success in his bid for Addis, it is President William Ruto. He wishes him well not necessarily for altruistic reasons, or in the greater interest of the Kenyan nation. Political expediency is the driver. For the duration that Raila has toned down at home to focus on the AUC, Ruto has enjoyed unbridled operation on an unrestrained political terrain. The traditional opposition fireworks that were Raila’s stock in trade have sagged into occasional sparks and whimpers.

Those who have been left in this space have failed to retool themselves into an alternative government in waiting. Their christening of themselves as “the people’s loyal opposition” evinces a tepid and short-term character. It falls far short of an ambitious brand that should enthuse the citizenry with the energy to take them to the ballot box, to place them in power. Their performance, so far, is just what any government in power would like to see, a scattered and seemingly clueless Opposition. With the belief that he has locked in Nyanza, Western and Coastal Kenya, Ruto would love to sustain this state of affairs. To keep Raila Odinga away, and the Opposition in overweight boots, limping in the muddy mist.

But Raila could also lose his fight for Africa. If he were to do so, how would this define him and those who are drooling for his space at home? Would he, indeed, allow the loss to define him, or would he seek to redefine himself? For, if someone else defines him, they are likely to paint him in ungainly colours.

The AUC chair bid represents for Raila a foggy moment. It is the transition between light and darkness. After the crack of dawn, light gains total triumph over darkness. But, conversely, at the fall of twilight, darkness enjoys complete victory over light. Hence, even if he should nurse thoughts about Kenya’s State House in 2027, the AUC chair is a factor. It will be the promising dawn that gives way to a brilliant day. Or it may just dim his dreams.

Reclaim place

Should he lose the race, Raila would return home a deflated civic balloon, a political ship without wind in its sails. He would need to grope around for fresh space and for a credible platform to relaunch himself into local affairs. For, when everything has been considered, Raila Odinga’s entire essence is political. His quiddity is nothing but politics. Raila is politics, and politics is Raila. Retirement is a strange idiom. It stands as far apart from him as the North and South poles stand to one another. He must, accordingly, walk in the footsteps of his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, to play in that space until such a time as the lights go out for him.

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If he does not make it in Addis Ababa next month, therefore, Raila will be solidly back in the arena, in Kibra and everywhere in Kenya. He will return not to watch quietly as the Kenya Kwanza government does the kind of things it is doing. He will get back to reclaim his place as the leader of the Kenya government in waiting. He will take advantage of the Opposition space that has weakened apace, during his dalliance with President Ruto. He will seek to restore himself as the only person who knows how to call Ruto to order. In that, he will also want to cast himself as the only person who is good enough to take over from Ruto, and one with the ability to restore the country to the right path.

As a pointer to this path, Raila has not completely gone silent in the midst of Gen-Z abductions by forces perceived to be State agents. On more than one occasion, he has come out to harshly criticise the Ruto government for its excesses. He has described abduction of Kenyan youth as a “primitive act that resembles the Tonton Macoute of Haiti under the Papa Doc and Baby Doc regimes.” As if to put matters beyond doubt, Raila’s Orange Democratic (ODM) Party Secretary General Edwin Sifuna has been very consistent in ventilating the traditional ODM visionary agenda, and the party’s primary message to Kenyans.

Sifuna continues to cast ODM as a reformist mass movement. The customary ODM squad presents itself as focused on social justice and good governance. It promises Kenyans better living standards in a better managed country.

Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o has, instructively, been installed as the Acting Party Leader. But why descriptively acting? Aren’t all ODM officials acting? Which NDC elected them? Prof Nyong’o acts because the owner of that office is not too far away. Victory or defeat in Addis, he will return when the time is right, to reclaim his perch.

But if he returns, or when he returns, Baba Raila Odinga will run straight into turbulent headwinds from President Ruto. If he returns after losing the Addis AUC chair bid, Ruto will have a field day with him. He will want to smelt him in the cast of “a perennial election loser.” He will tell Kenyans and the rest of the world that he bent backwards over, to help Raila to become the AUC chairperson, but Raila lost. He will gain the courage to talk about the money that his government is spending to campaign for Odinga.

Finally, he will tell the world that Odinga is unelectable, anywhere. But if he returns after victory in Addis, he will be characterised as a restless ingrate. Accordingly, Ruto will profile himself as a man who was sinned against by someone he helped.

Virulent animosity

Meanwhile, Kenya’s feeble Opposition is good for Raila. It makes his possible re-entry easy. Even if he wins the race to Addis, he can always return to Kenya to gather together a scattered Opposition and perch himself at its head. Nothing stops him from resigning from the AUC chair, if elected, to return home to run for office.

The path towards this would appear to have already been thought through. It could spell a huge disappointment for President Ruto, who is already purring with buoyant nerve and ostentation in parts of Kenya, previously seen as Odinga’s electoral strongholds.

Raila Odinga and William Ruto are the only remaining national-level political leaders who are also recognised in their native ethnic communities as local political kingpins.

Someday, one of the two must remove the other from the national political arena, to remain the undisputed hero. For, when the chips are down, there is no love lost between President Ruto and Raila.

For a decade and a half, beginning in their 2008 fallout, their political relations have been anything but friendly. Many of these years have gone towards hostile political competition. Their virulent animosity can at best only go into hibernation, pending the ripe moment for bursting into a sizzling competition. It is the kind of competition in which one of the two must eventually annihilate the other, politically. Ruto has elected the diplomatic path. His style is to parachute Odinga into a diplomatic dungeon in Addis. But, beyond this, he also expects that he will then step into Raila’s big shoes as the supremo in the spaces Odinga has occupied. For his part, Odinga seems to play along, with his cards close to the chest.  Only occasionally does he betray his feelings, when he throws the rare invective at Ruto and his government. What is more, he seconds some of his best lieutenants to the Ruto government, maybe to learn his ways from inside!

But back at ODM, Sifuna leads the squad that has not been brought into the broad-based love affair that Ruto has forged with Raila. Sifuna will go on live national television to tell the country that the thought of political fusion between ODM and Ruto’s UDA is a pipe dream. “We will lose the election with Ruto even if we supported him, as ODM. I am very clear in my mind,” he says.

Is Sifuna Raila’s sounding board? He goes on to accuse Ruto of “a culture of lies” and of “kidnapping young people.” He asserts that regardless of who supports Ruto, for as long as Ruto runs what Kenyans perceive as a felonious State, he will still lose the 2027 election.

Now this is the essential Raila Odinga, Agwambo. On the one hand, he is working with Ruto in a broad-based government. He has seconded a number of people to Ruto as Cabinet Secretaries, and in other capacities, too. But, on the other hand, he denies that his ODM party is a part of the Ruto government.

In Parliament, his party holds strongly to the Opposition leadership. He avoids a formal pact between ODM and UDA. Then, occasionally, he will throw a barb at Ruto. These barbs could be inoculations against what is to follow.

Own terms

Apart from this, Raila and ODM don’t leave the Azimio Coalition, despite the reality that this entity is in atrophy. Is the day coming when Raila Odinga and ODM are going to have William Ruto and Kenya Kwanza for breakfast?

They look set to eat them from the head downwards. As they continue to decry the excesses in their broad-based government, the day comes when their ambassadors must quit the Ruto government.

They leave not because President Ruto has asked them to. No. They leave on their own terms.

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The season comes when this message intensifies, “ODM was never a part of this bad government.” They only seconded a few people to help Ruto to stabilise the country and to resuscitate a sick economy. It is turning out, they say, that Ruto is incorrigible, irremediable, irredeemable. The person to advise him is not yet born. Hence they are recalling those they seconded to this government. President Ruto suddenly discovers that he is standing in a tropical political thunderstorm, on feet of clay. He threw away Mt Kenya because he thought he had locked in Nyanza, the Coast and Western. But now Raila Odinga has returned to reclaim his space.

Clearly, the thinking that Raila Odinga is leaving the Kenyan political scene anytime soon is precipitate. So, too, is the thought that anyone is going to replace him as the dominant political voice in Nyanza. Nor will ODM fuse with UDA any time soon, or prepare to field candidates in common with President Ruto, or support his bid for a second term.

Political base

What Kenya should begin preparing for is a reloaded ODM. If Raila succeeds in his AUC bid, the people to watch are going to be the young turks in his ODM party, including leaders like Secretary General Sifuna, Deputy Party Leader Godfrey Osotsi, Embakasi East MP Babu Owino, Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang, and a motley of other leaders who have their eyes on the future.

They would appear set to re-energise their party and to be a huge headache both to those napping in the Opposition political space and to an overconfident President Ruto and Kenya Kwanza.

In the background is the mercurial Raila Odinga, the one man with a bagful of last bullets and plots.

Apart from his impending last bullet at the AUC, he has several last bullets for 2027. Write him off at your own risk and peril.

For President Ruto, the peril is real. He has burnt his boats and bridges in the Mt Kenya region while banking on forlorn hope that Odinga is retiring and that ODM is available.

To paraphrase the Nigerian poet Chris Okigbo, the moon has ascended between the President and his political base, between two pines that bow to each other. Love with the moon has ascended. It has fed on their solitary stems. They are now shadows that cling to each other, (through sirens like Kimani Ichung’wa), but kiss the air only.

Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser.