NASA move to call of ‘swearing-in’ triumph for Kenyan democracy

NASA leader Raila Odinga during the interview with The Standard at his residence in Karen,Nairobi.[Photo: Elvis Ogina| Standard]

It is official; cooler heads have prevailed in the National Super Alliance (NASA) and Raila will not be sworn in as an imposter president and with that ensure that some of the top political leaders face charges of treason, and throw our country into legal and constitutional turmoil.

What is abundantly clear is that Raila and his NASA partners understood that they have too much to lose by this fake inauguration and very little to gain, so they “postponed” the event.

Let’s hope it has been postponed indefinitely for the good of Kenya.

Either way, I think Kenyans can finally, after months of campaigns and political and legal turbulence, start to look forward and not glance nervously at the morning’s newspaper or phones to see what proposal or statement is made by the Opposition on any given day.

Resist divisions

Let’s hope that the sober voices in NASA, or any of the parties that make up the alliance, start to look forward rather than back and focus their energies on 2022. It is important that Kenya has a competent, robust and loyal Opposition. An opposition that criticises the Government when it deserves it and seeks the support of the people, but expresses unswerving loyalty to the Republic of Kenya and its Constitution.

Our nation and the ethos that underpin it should not be on the negotiating table and talk of secession should be banished to the hole it emerged from. Kenya is too valuable for us to entertain thoughts of its division or destruction.

In fact, to ensure that this particular genie never sees the light of day again, we should act against those who call to divide us.

There is so much to do, and much of it can only be done together as a nation united and not divided. Not divided by political, ethnic, religious or tribal boundaries.

It is time NASA started to make the case for Kenyans’ support, not by the tribal affiliation but by the strength of their vision and policies.

Uhuru and the Jubilee Party have already amply demonstrated that they can receive significant support from those well outside its traditional bases of support and have done so by asking for a vote of confidence on work that it has done there.

The previous Uhuru-led government showed consistently that it will bring government support in infrastructure, health, education and agriculture as much to a previously Nasa heartland as much as a Jubilee one.

So when Uhuru and Ruto talk of an end to tribalism they are putting their money and policies where their mouths are. Now it is time for the Opposition to act likewise and hopefully in the not too distant future, we will see an end to voting purely on ethnic lines.

Bright future

We must give the new government time to enact its extremely ambitious plan for progress and development, because there are exciting days ahead for Kenya. In five years, I am confident that Kenya will be well on its way to meeting Vision 2030 goals and the hallowed middle-income status we crave.

I hope that NASA will take this time to reassess its actions, platform and policies, and ask the questions every losing party must ask itself, and then return for another chance at the presidency in five years.

Today, it is to be greatly hoped that a new generation of NASA leaders will emerge, leaders that will not try and seek power through any means outside the ballot box, not through threats, extortion or political machinations.

It is a new dawn and a new day for Kenya as we start to look forward to 2018 and say goodbye to a tumultuous 2017 that most of us will be glad to see the back of. Now that Raila and his partners have seen sense, we can start to breathe again and entertain hope for the future.

By postponing the inauguration, they have stepped back from the brink and shown that as petulant as they have been up until now, if the country and international community do not give into their whims and caprices then they will relent.

In the end, Kenyan democracy won and proved itself durable enough despite the threats to it by parts of the Opposition. Let’s hope this lesson is well learnt by those who tried a variety of ways to circumvent it, and if so, this can only be a good day for Kenya and its people.

  Ms Mghongo, an architect, is an MBA student, University of Nairobi