Oburu's 'benevolent dictatorship' outburst causes stir

ODM party leader Oburu Oginga during a fundraiser at Chiga Catholic Church in Homa Bay Town Constituency. [James Omoro, Standard]

Machakos Deputy Governor Francis Mwangangi has faulted ODM leader Dr Oburu Odinga for daringly advising President William Ruto to exercise benevolent dictatorship over Kenyans.

He said it was shocking and unbelievable for a leader of Dr Oburu's calibre, whose late young brother, Raila Odinga, spent the better part of his life fighting for Kenyans' democracy, to resort to this kind of outburst.

On Wednesday last week, while at Statehouse along with other leaders from the ODM fraternity, Dr Oburu was quoted as advising the President to exercise benevolent dictatorship to successfully achieve his leadership goals.

"It is so shocking for one of the great Raila's political family members to unleash such utterances before Kenyans who believed in the family's defence for democracy," he said.

With all due respect, the Deputy Governor Francis Mwangangi called upon Dr Oburu to withdraw the choking statement and apologise to Kenyans to safeguard the political reputation of the family that was left behind by Raila Odinga and which many Kenyans believed in to date.

He said, despite his honourable advanced age, Dr Oburu, who replaced his younger brother Raila in the ODM leadership, should maintain the status quo Raila believed in and left behind in terms of democracy and stop demeaning himself for the sake of just 'power' as he has of late been agitating for.

Machakos Deputy Governor Francis Mwangangi. [File, Standard]

Elsewhere, the Deputy Governor lashed out at UDA legislators who, last week while at a public function in Machakos, attacked Machakos Governor Wavinya Ndeti.

He said the politicians led by Machakos town MP Caleb Mutiso spent the better part of the function just criticising the Governor instead of focusing on what brought them there.

"The UDA fraternity led by their top leader keeps telling the opposition that they have no agenda but it is they whose public functions' main agenda is to provoke their counterparts by showing power mighty thus proving they are themselves agendaless", he said.

The Deputy Governor, at the same time, called upon the South African Government to ensure total protection for foreigners who are being evicted from the country.

He said it was not fair for the citizens of that country, who resolved to chase away non-citizens, to attack them and destroy their resources.

"We have several Kenyans and many other citizens from elsewhere whose businesses were vandalised and destroyed and even owners may have been killed while the Government of South Africa did nothing to prevent the catastrophe," he said.

He called upon the Organisation of African Union to intervene if need be to reconcile the situation for the sake of the greater unity of the continent.