Nasa leader Raila Odinga addresses supporters at Mlolongo in the company
of Machakos governor candidate in the last elections Wavinya Ndeti on
November 25, 2017. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Kenya opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) leader Raila
Odinga on Saturday turned down a concerted push by the coalition’s
hardliners to swear him in on Tuesday, the day President Uhuru Kenyatta
is scheduled to take the oath of office for his second and final term.
At a five-hour consultative meeting at the Maanzoni Lodge in Machakos County, southeast of Nairobi, Mr
Odinga is said to have called for caution, citing his international
image, and his respect for the law and the Constitution many in the
coalition say he fathered.
The former Prime Minister,
who withdrew from the October 26 repeat election after successfully
petitioning President Kenyatta’s August 8 win protesting lack of
electoral reforms, has termed the repeat poll a sham and has called for a
fresh one under a new electoral commission.
Flatly rejected
Multiple sources told the Sunday Nation
of a man who, even though he believes he legitimately won the August 8
poll, flatly rejected calls that he be sworn in at a ceremony at
Nairobi’s Uhuru Park on Tuesday.
He instead called for a
more vigorous push for change in the country using his proposed
People’s Assemblies, civil disobedience and select product boycott.
“Some people in the coalition would have really wanted to go on
with it (parallel swearing-in). But some people have called for caution
instead, with Baba (Raila) himself being the biggest voice, citing his
national stature, international image and his respect for the law,” a
Nasa MP who attended the Maanzoni meeting, and who is a close confidant
of Mr Odinga’s, told the Sunday Nation.
There
is also the real legal challenge of the fact that it is not only
treasonable to take a presidential oath of office unless as stipulated
by law, it will also be an almost insurmountable challenge to implement
such a move: Where does he go next after he swears himself in?
Further,
Mr Odinga, sources said, holds the view that holding a parallel
swearing-in ceremony will trivialise his push for electoral justice,
government exclusion and human rights abuses.
Mr Odinga
did not speak to journalists at Maanzoni but at two stopovers in Athi
River and Mlolongo, outskirts of Nairobi, he avoided the topic of the
swearing-in, only saying that Tuesday will be a day of mourning people
he said were killed by the police when he returned from a 10-day trip to
the United States.
“They should have shot me instead,
that would have been better. If they did not want me to come, they
should have asked me to stay in the US. But they knew I was coming, they
let me do it, and when excited young people came to welcome me back,
they shot them dead like thieves. What kind of government is that? Uhuru
and Ruto should be charged at The Hague for these crimes against
humanity,” said Mr Odinga at Mlolongo.
He announced at
the rally that Nasa will hold its own event on Tuesday at the Jacaranda
Grounds in Nairobi to mourn the dead who he said were over 30.
The
government on Friday asked Mr Odinga to shelve his plans for a parallel
event, and instead attend President Kenyatta’s swearing-in at the Moi
International Sports Centre, Kasarani, where all the seven presidential
candidates and their running mates have been invited.
“We
are mourning, and on the other side, Uhuru is preparing a feast, a
ceremony. All patriotic Kenyans will be at Jacaranda mourning our people
brutally killed by this regime,” said Mr Odinga.
"Rogue cat"
Citing
Kenya’s Constitution which in Article 1 says that it is the people of
Kenya that hold sovereign power, Mr Odinga said that such an act of
claiming sovereign power will be done according to the law, but insisted
that it’s time had come.
“Jubilee government’s
proverbial 40 days have come. They have become a rogue cat, and are now
snatching our chicks from us. Such a cat is killed, and as I said, there
are many ways to do it: You can use a knife, or a rope and strangle it,
or put it in a sack and drown it in water. There are many ways. But
what we know for sure is that this cat called Jubilee’s days are over,”
said Mr Odinga.
Those said to back the calls for a
parallel swearing-in are Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama, 2017
Nairobi governor candidate Miguna Miguna, and Nasa chief executive
Norman Magaya, all of whom feel that the only way to punish Jubilee “for
electoral theft is to take things in their own hands”.
Nasa
co-principal Musalia Mudavadi, on the other hand, is leading the camp
calling for caution, on grounds that they have Jubilee just where they
wanted them: An illegitimate government, he is said to argue, with no
much international support, and which is soon going to cave in to Nasa’s
huge following, and calls for electoral reforms, a view that Mr Odinga
appeared to support in the meeting on Saturday.
Civic action
Civic action
“We
recognise Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka as the legitimate president
and deputy president of the republic of Kenya respectively, and as
sovereign people, we commit ourselves to see to it that they assume
office,” Mr Mudavadi said in a statement that was received with applause
by the MPs in attendance.
Speaking at Mlolongo, Nasa
co-ordinating committee co-chairman James Orengo said that the path to
the assumption of power had been made and planned well.
“We
have read, and re-read this plan. We are ready. And Uhuru and Ruto will
not know what hit them. They will just hear that Raila has been sworn
in,” Mr Orengo told an enthusiastic crowd that blocked the road and
demanded to be addressed by Mr Odinga.
In the
statement, Mr Mudavadi said that the three-pronged Nasa approach:
sustained civic action, economic boycotts and the people’s assemblies –
with 12 of the 19 Nasa-leaning county assemblies having already passed
the motion, was well on course.
“The people’s assembly
is not a parallel government. It is not an alternative parliament or
county assembly. It is a process of charting political destiny,” said Mr
Mudavadi.
Mr Odinga has fashioned the assemblies as
one where people shall exercise their sovereign power directly, one that
has now extended to Parliament.
“We have not
individually and collectively delegated our sovereignty to Uhuru
Kenyatta. In this regard, we call upon our Members of Parliament not to
participate in vetting Uhuru Kenyatta’s cabinet and other appointments,”
said Mr Mudavadi.
Already, Nasa has paralysed the
bicameral Parliament by starving it of names of its members to the
different Senate and National Assembly committees.
Nasa
further accused the Jubilee administration of concerted efforts to take
Kenya back to dictatorship, human rights abuses, exclusion and economic
marginalisation as well as repression.
No comments :
Post a Comment