Re: Joseph Oloo Obiero's Blog on Hon Raila Odinga.

The purported Joseph Oloo Obiero's interview with Hon. Raila Odinga in a Denver Hotel hallway is a sham. How can any intelligent reader of your media vouch that the said interview took place?

First this Obiero claims that the conversation with and answers from Hon. Odinga were not verbatim. Secondly, he stated that the answers by Raila were products of his memory of what was discussed. How do we trust his memory? How can one tell whether the guy had some strong drinks at the venue, especially after toiling all day or night at the Wal-Mart check-out lines? Or the man might have been on some kind of mind altering drugs. Who knows whose nose is it! The bloger who authored the damning trash may have been a ghost.

Raila was in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metropolitan area after his function in Denver. He has been here several times to visit with the Kenya community. To attest to this, I have been at all his meetings whenever he visits. He is always with his ODM MPs colleagues, security details and those hosting him. We have always presented him with a list of questions to answer. To tell your readers the truth, some of the questions have been quite pointed and very personal. however, I have never heard him castigate, show a dislike of, or rubbish any member of his Pentagon team including Hon. Ruto or Mudavadi. Hon. Odinga has always answered audience questions forthrightly, intelligently and sincerely without ruffling any feathers with people asking questions. I would say he seems to be at ease with his listeners. I have never seen him refer to a written or prepared speech. He reminds me of the late T.J. Mboya whom I knew fairly well because of my involvement with a community harambee school project back in Kenya. A leader who would give full attention and engage one in very constructive discourse.

Together with his Pentagon team, Hon. Raila Odinga is the only hope for any meaningful economic change in our country. We have to undo the wrongs done to the people of Kenya for the past four decades.

Under President Kibaki's administration, we have seen Kenya balkanized and divided into three economic classes: the very filthy RICH, the very POOR and the struggling MIDDLE class.

There was a viable strong middle class in Kenya after independence and in the early 1970s through part of 1980s. The balk of this class was mainly made up of professionals in both the government and the private sector. The families in this economic bracket were able to: 1) afford a car or other means of transportation, 2) a house, 3) send their children to reasonably good and affordably private and/or public schools and 4) paid taxes that helped in creating the high standard of living Kenyans enjoyed during those years.

The class was fairly stable but lost its economic buying power, became worse-off and almost wiped out during the Moi's era due inflationary forces. Its members realized that all those good things they could afford became unattainable and out of reach.

There is resurgence of the middle class in the country. However, under the Kibaki's administration there is too unequal distribution of wealth leaving many would be middle class struggling to make ends meet. Much of the growth of this class is now tilted towards one region of the country. Distribution of resources and employment has left out the school leavers and university graduates being churned out of the country's major institutions of higher learning.

Also forgotten are the rural population of the country. The standard of living for the population of our rural areas must be addressed for equality to be realized. Our development policies must pay particular attention to the farmers, entrepreneurs including the small business owners, and the non-rural poor urban residents including women and children.

Devolution of resources to enhance economic development throughout all regions of Kenya is doable and a must! The persistent problems of the SQUATTERS promised to be settled during President Kenyatta's reign must be done. It is indefensible and immoral to claim economic growth under Presidents Kibaki's and Moi's governments when we still have people living in shacks a long central Kenya highways/roads. These forgotten Kenyans must have places they can call home. They MUST be settled now! Those who are singing praises to economic miracles under President Kenya, can sing all they want until the cows come home, but this will never change the status of our rural and urban poor.

Majority of Kenyans, save for Mr. Obiero, trust that only Hon. Raila Odinga has the propensity, the vision and the plans in place to end unequal distribution of the nation's resource to benefit all the people of Kenya. It has been over four decades since the dawn of independence in December 12th, 1963, yet majority of Kenyans have not fully enjoyed the fruits of UHURU.

A word of advise to all bloggers to your media; please check your facts before you put trash on a respected circulation like this one. Oh ... by the way, don't forget to use your real name and source of your misinformation Mr. Obiero. Thanks to Jaluo.com, and long live our motherland, Kenya,

O'Gado, solo
DFW, Texas, U.S.A.