(sent by Bob Awuor)

Milton obote Joshua wrote:

Raila is his own worst enemy

Story by MAKAU MUTUA

Publication Date: 2007/07/08

Those who live by the sword must die by it. I am certain that Mr Raila Odinga, the maestro of doublespeak, must know this unhappy maxim. That is why it was so surreal to hear the lofty Opposition doyen cry wolf in broad daylight. This week, Mr Odinga stated — with a hint of sarcasm — that certain people did not think he was electable as President because of his paternity. Mr Odinga has made many hypocritical statements in his lifetime, but this must rank as the most incredible of them all. Let us peel the man's political identity. I have written on this page before that Mr Odinga is a contradiction in terms. He says one thing and then does another. Because of his zealotry to rule Kenya, he will do anything to reside at State House.

The grand march to the House on the Hill is the only thing that matters. All other things — truth, principles, and relationships — are just mere malleable details. Although he was Mr Moi's detainee more than once, he abandoned the Opposition in 1997 to work with Kanu. When Mr Moi anointed Mr Uhuru Kenyatta in 2002 instead of him, Mr Odinga joined Mr Mwai Kibaki to form Narc. In 2005, he was in bed again with Mr Moi to defeat President Kibaki in the referendum. Nor can Mr Odinga decide which of his serial and multiple identities is primary to him. If Mr Odinga wants to govern Kenya, then I submit that he must be a Kenyan first and a Luo second.

His primary loyalty must be to Kenya, not to his ethnic identity because it is as a Kenyan that he would serve as President. Neither would he be the president of his community, much as that may motivate many in that community. He would take the constitutional oath to be the President of the Republic of Kenya. This is not to say that the community is not important. The tragedy for Mr Odinga — and his ilk in the political class — is that he is a witting victim of the tribal ideology that drives Kenyan politics, and from which he has benefited. In fact, it is not clear that Mr Odinga would be anything without the tribalisation of our politics.

He is the quintessential tribal baron. The ethnic baton that he so effectively wields is not an accidental gift. It is an inheritance from his father, the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. If Jaramogi rose to be the king of his community, Raila Odinga was its prince. Once the old man passed, the hopes of the community were reposited in Mr Odinga. Although Mr Odinga does not live in Luo Nyanza, he has played the role of the region's messiah like a fine flute. In him lies the dream of the region for salvation from the claws of the Kenyan state. Only a presidency by Mr Odinga can cure this communal psychosis. That is why Mr Odinga cannot afford to lose the presidency to Mr Kibaki or to Mr Kalonzo Musyoka and Mr Musalia Mudavadi — his two plausible ODM opponents. He has told his community that this time he will deliver. Deliver he must or he relinquishes the mantle of king. For him, the 2007 presidential contest is a life or death struggle. Mr Odinga purports to be a nationalist even though facts — those stubborn things — tell a different story. All his close confidantes and supporters have been his kinsmen. He turned the National Development Party — the party that he bought after losing out to Mr Michael Kijana Wamalwa in Ford Kenya — into a tribal party. He then used the NDP to lead his supporters into a merger with Kanu. In 2002, he took the defunct NDP from Kanu and transformed it into the Liberal Democratic Party. Even though the LDP had token members of other groups — like Mr Musyoka, Mr George Saitoti, and Mr Joseph Kamotho — its core was Mr Odinga's group. In ODM, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Musyoka seem to have realised — perhaps too late — that Mr Odinga's allies are in charge. No one personifies control of ODM on behalf of Mr Odinga than Prof Peter Anyang' Nyong'o, the erstwhile nationalist. The other ODM leaders, including Mr Musyoka, understand that Mr Odinga's advantage comes from the solid support that his community gives him.

No other leader in Kenya, including President Kibaki, enjoys such solid support from his ethnic community. But this is both a blessing and a curse for Mr Odinga. It gives him a solid ethnic base but also detracts from his nationalist credentials. To be fair, the problem is not Mr Odinga's alone. To date, no Kenyan ruler has arisen without a fanatical tribal base. Perhaps Mr Jomo Kenyatta was the last to do so primarily because of anti-colonialism and the euphoria of independence. But Mr Kenyatta quickly transformed the young post- colonial State into one dominated by his tribesmen. He gave way to Mr Moi, another blatant tribalist. Mr Kibaki, once thought to be more nationalist than tribalist, has become the latter. The cancer of tribalism has infected every cell in our national body. It is the disease that has atrophied our national politics because no leader has the courage to rise above it.

Take the creation of Narc and the referendum on the draft constitution. Both were purely tribal affairs, although leaders tried to construct them otherwise. Most Kenyans supported Narc because they saw their tribal barons in it. It was nothing but a coalition of ethnic elites. So was the referendum. Ethnic elites in most provinces ganged up against the elites in Central and Eastern provinces. Even women — who stood to gain the most from the Wako Draft — voted against it if they came from groups whose elites were in ODM. Tribalism trumped gender solidarity. So, is Mr Odinga unelectable because he is a Luo? The answer is yes and no.

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Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Chair of the Kenya Human Rights Commission..