Raila Odinga. [Photo: the-star.co.ke]
For hours, Raila captured the nation's attention as we awaited what he would tell us after promising a "major" announcement following
the disputed poll of October 26 which pitied him against Jubilee's President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta.The nation held its breath and its heartbeat stopped for a moment. You could actually cut the tension in the air with a knife! It was a doomsday scenario for ordinary Kenyans. The destiny with biblical Armageddon had arrived.When he stepped to the podium to speak, many folks gasped as they drank every word he uttered with the thirst of a dry sponge.Interestingly, as a trained linguist, I focussed my gun on baba's body language as opposed to what he said. My overall assessment was that his body language revealed a man who is either caught between two granite rocks or a man who was able to successfully mask his game plan. I feel that Raila Odinga had given too much hope to his followers who were so eager to get the way forward from the man who had promised to take them to Canaan. Yet, as things stand, they seem stuck in the desert for another forty years as the Bible records. In the words of Ibrahim Hussein of the 'Kinjeketile' Swahili masterpiece,'Mtu huzaa neno. Neno likawa kubwa, likammeza.'I see a parallel between Hussein's Kinjeketile and our very Raila Odinga. Kinjeketile promised his people that the magical water he had given them would make them immune to the white man's bullets! It is only when they were mowed by the German machine guns that they realized that they had been duped by mzee.In a way, Raila may have promised his followers immunity from Uhuru's guns. Some of them may have believed or taken his message literally and confronted the men in uniform leading to scores of injuries and even a few deaths.So, when Raila stepped on the podium, people knew that he had a big message. It became a sort of an anti-climax when he actually said "nothing" in the end. Yet it is in that silence that one could read a lot about Raila.I see a man who has been trapped in a vicious world that is the Kenyan politics. Yet, like the proverbial cat with nine lives, Raila may still spring a surprise or two.