How can we benefit from Raila’s negative energy?

By Moses Kuria

In high school Biology, there is a long established practice whereby students have to balance between theoretical principles and the practical application of the same in understanding human anatomy. Since the students cannot practically work on life humans, they have to demonstrate that the theory is not hot air by dissecting rats and other rodents.

Unlike these students, there is no laboratory environment for politicians. That is why it is imperative that all leaders approach issues with measured caution because the impact of their actions and utterances affect live humans not rats. This past week Raila Odinga was in his element. When governors and senators thought that the CORD leadership was supporting their quest for constitutional change in support of devolution, Raila let the cat out of the bag. For him the only necessary change in the constitution is to change from Presidential System of government to a parliamentary one, in order to remedy the causes of losing three Presidential elections. When Raila’s aide Eliud Owallo was summoned by CID for questioning, many thought that the police went too far. Only for Owallo to turn up at a Press conference and announce that indeed he is a co-convener of the so-called March 4 Movement and for Raila to take off with his podium campaign for a referendum. By the end of the week, Raila and his partner Kalonzo Musyoka had beaten a hasty retreat and called off the referendum crusade.

Herein lies the real problem with Raila Odinga. The man is blessed with amazing energies and zeal. But he has a chronic, terminal and fatal problem when it comes to decision making, judgment and strategy. Raila’s style can be compared to the zeal and negative energy of Robespierre during the French revolution. The real problem starts with when he sees a crowd. He gets quite excited and falls to the temptation of developing strategy and policy positions when he is holding the microphone.

The cheering crowd is what makes Raila, but sadly it also perpetually destroys his colourful but dismal political career. In football when fans misbehave the team is forced to play in an empty stadium. Perhaps it is time Raila’s handlers found an ingenious way of blocking Raila from coming face to face with the crowds. May be, just may be, his vision and strategy might be less blurred by the vuvuzelas.

One thing you cannot fault Raila for is audacity. The man has guts. How else can one explain his quest for constitutional mutilation when he ran the campaign on a single platform of having achieved, in a Rambo-like lone soldier mission, to give Kenya her new progressive constitution? How else would one comprehend the zeal of the man who left the sick bed at the Nairobi Hospital after a surgery to join his co-principal Mwai Kibaki in campaigning for the constitutional referendum only to want to start another one just three years after the promulgation? Pinch me to see if I am real if I spend three years branding Kalonzo Musyoka as a water-melon only to hold hands with him in demanding for constitutional reform in 2013.

So what drives Raila Odinga, the self styled enigma of Kenyan politics. In my view, it comes down to negative energy and adventurism. Losing three elections is not a joking matter. You have all the people especially political strongholds, foreign donors, local funders and the immediate family all asking tough questions and demanding answers. It is easy to descend into an emotional depression. If you are idle this gets even worse. It is my considered view that Raila’s melodramatic actions of the last few weeks are meant to save the man from that nose-dive into post-defeat trauma (PDT) This nation cannot leave the task of saving Raila from PDT to the patient alone. If we have to continue pretending to be a caring society that deserves its place in the league of civilised nations, it is incumbent upon us to look for ways of converting Raila’s negative energy into an engine that will fuel our continuing journey towards realisation of Vision 2030 and Millennium Development Goals ’s. Every time the Jubilee Government attempts to create a role for Raila befitting his experience and status, his supporters howl at him and he backpedals. So why not leave this task of getting him something useful to them?

In 1982 and 2007, Raila’s adventurism resulted in hundreds of Kenya losing their lives. This time around we cannot afford that. We either find a way of benefitting from his negative energy or give him some lab rats like the high school Biology students.