Opposition leader Raila Odinga addresses the media at City Mortuary recently. [Photo/Raila Odinga]
President Uhuru Kenyatta has a huge task to perform in 2018, opposition Chief Raila Odinga has said.
In his Christmas and New Year message to Kenyans, the former prime minister said Kenyans are so divided that achieving the foreshadowed development in 2018 may remain a pipe dream.
“We end 2017 a deeply divided people. We are divided between those who have rallied behind the leadership that wants to take us back to the dictatorship and those who believe that democracy and rule of law portend a brighter future for us all,” Raila said.
“We are divided by the forces and ideas that propelled the second liberation and the new constitutional dispensation, and the beneficiaries of the old political order whose power and wealth is threatened by democracy, rule of law, devolution and inclusive governance.”
He made the remarks hours after reiterating he will be sworn-in as the ‘peoples’ president’ as planned.
“We are divided by historical injustices, between those who believe that the truth will set us free, and those who fear the truth,” the former Langata MP said.
“As we look into 2018, we must acknowledge that the forces of autocracy are on the ascendancy, not just here in Kenya but across the world. The global wind of change that propelled our second liberation has abated. Freedom and democracy are under threat in every part of the world.
He called on Kenyans to choose between resigning themselves to dictatorship, to accept and move on, or to stand up for what we believe in.