Raila Odinga.[Photo/businessdaily.co.ke]
NASA leader Raila Amolo Odinga has spent his entire life to fight for democratic space in the Country. In fact, no other Kenyan has paid a heavier price in a bid to liberate this Country more than the NASA supremo.
During the aborted 1982 Coup, Raila found himself in detention when he was accused of the conspiracy to overthrow Moi's regime alongside members of the air force who led the coup.
He paid a heavy price at the family and individual level. His wife Ida had to raise his family single-handedly as he spends his life in the cells. It is even said that Raila did not attend the burial of his mother whose death he came to learn of two months after the burial!
His strong belief in democracy is therefore unquestionable. The essence of democracy is to have the support of the majority to rally behind your cause in a one-man-one-vote situation.
There is the unwritten expectation that everybody has to participate in the democratic process.
Raila's decision to boycott the 2017 poll flies in the face of democracy. In fact, his actions may be interpreted as undemocratic and cowardly. It negates the very essence of what he has been fighting for all along.
I feel that Raila should even hand over the baton of struggle to the younger generation. To cling onto the 'power' of opposition itself is a mark of dictatorship. How will Raila convince the Nation that he is different from Mugabe or Museveni for that matter?
I am alive to the weaknesses of democracy considering the demographic patterns of our nation. I know that like Dr. Thomas Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen's 'An Enemy of the People', Raila may have noted that the compact majority may be wrong. He may have chosen to stand alone in the struggle.
Yet I still fault him for applying the Samson complex, where, when you are about to die, you die with the rest of the People.
The economic boycott of products that he has called for is no different from Samson's attempt to die with the rest.