ODM leader Raila Odinga being sworn in as prime minister in 2008. [Photo/ Kahawa Tungu]
NASA leader Raila Odinga is about to make the most dangerous mistake in his life by accepting to be sworn in as the ‘leader of the people of Kenya’. The purported swearing in of the leader of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), set for November 28, will happen on the same that President Uhuru Kenyatta will take the oath of office to start his second term. President Kenyatta handed Odinga a resounding defeat twice this year in the presidential elections, forcing the ODM leader to run out of options to stop the Jubilee boss from assuming office for another five-year term. If Raila accepts to be sworn in, he will have committed treason, which is punishable in only one way under the Kenyan law — death by hanging. In fact, even imagining the death of the president of Kenya attracts a capital punishment. What Raila is about to do is worse. The last person to commit treason in Kenya — Captain Hezekiah Ochuka — was sentenced to death for attempting to overthrow a democratically elected government. He was hanged in 1987. Raila has admitted being part of the coup planners, but his deep political connections may have played a part in him getting a lighter sentence then. Senior officials in NASA have said that the opposition is planning to swear in their leader, claiming that President Kenyatta is not the legitimate president. This claim is baseless, considering a petition they sponsored at the Supreme Court to challenge the election of President Kenyatta was summarily dismissed for lacking merit.