ODM leader Raila Odinga. [Photo/ Nairobi Confidential]
When NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga met President Uhuru Kenyatta during the funeral of Rachel Shebesh’s father, he asked the head of state to respect old men, and the Jubilee leader said immediately that he held the elderly in high esteem. In return, the president asked the ODM leader, who he defeated by more than 1.4 million votes in last month’s general election, to respect the will of the people. “Let us go back to the ballot and let the citizens decide. Raila said Uhuru should respect old men and I respect old men but l tell him to respect the decision of Kenyans,” said the President.Raila has a history of challenging results whenever he has lost. In 2007, he refused to accept President Mwai Kibaki’s win, and his call for mass action led to the deaths of more than 1,200 people, with more than 600,000 being displaced from their homes. Just hours after calling for respect among politicians, Raila held a press conference, in which he called President Kenyatta names. The whole event was filled with insults, most of which cannot be repeated here. This is a textbook definition of doublespeak. But it is not the first time that the opposition leader has preached water and drank wine.
It appears that MPs and other leaders allied to the NASA coalition have been copying from Raila's book of insults. In all of their rallies, all they do is utter embarrassing insults to Jubilee leaders. They should not be allowed to continue getting away with this.
For years now, Raila has been accusing the UhuRuto administration of not being diverse enough in the distribution of top state jobs. But when given an opportunity, such as when Raila was prime minister, he mainly dished out top government jobs to his relatives and members of his Luo community. The other tribes who support Raila are always left out, including the recent sharing of NASA top positions in the Senate and National Assembly.