Dialogue's innocent, blame Uhuru and Raila

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Opposition leader Raila Odinga are both right and wrong on this National Dialogue thing.

For purposes of this engagement, I will leave out the political hawks surrounding Raila and Uhuru because they are at best peripheral, for this thing is about these two.
To understand the context, first and which is obvious, you've got to go back to the days of their fathers, Uhuru's being the first President and Raila's his Vice President. Until Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died, he couldn't stand the sight of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

Yet Mr Odinga had turned down the offer from the "Mzungu" to rule Kenya, instead demanding that they first release Mr Kenyatta from detention.

In 1969, at the opening of the Nyanza General Hospital, then known as Russia Hospital (because of the Soviets who funded the project and inspired Odinga's communism leaning), the two old men insulted each other and the rest is history.

Odinga would spend the rest of his life fighting Kenyatta and later Daniel arap Moi, with whom he worked with briefly as a chair of Cotton Lint and Marketing Board.

Politically, since that day in 1969, relations between Kenyatta's Kikuyu community and Odinga's Luo, went from bad to worse, even within the single-party system.

The attitude of the Kikuyu ruling elite, came out in the fact that though Nyanza remained a part of Kenya ruled by Kenyatta, he never stepped there until he passed on in 1978. In fact, the joke then, perpetuated by a key Kenyatta ally, was that Nyanza was the "headquarters" of cholera. They would later, in another stereotype, claim this was the fountain of HIV/Aids scourge.

The two communities then found a common purpose to work together politically in the "Moi-must-go" project. Mr Moi, who if you recall, succeeded Joseph Murumbi, who had taken over from Odinga after the 1966 fallout with Kenyatta. If Odinga and by extension the Luo were furious because of the way Kenyatta Senior humiliated and harangued Odinga, they would be more outraged later at what Mwai Kibaki did to Raila after the "assist" he gave him.

This December 2002 encounter at the starting blocks of the Presidential race is interesting because Moi had sidestepped the son of Jaramogi in his choice for successor despite the latter having dismantled his NDP party to join Kanu.

As it were, Uhuru lost, but the seat in Kenya's political lingua franca, remained in Mount Kenya where Jaramogi had assisted his father get, hoping it would next go to the "Lake".

But what happened next, with Uhuru as Leader of Opposition, reignited the fury that would explode after the 2007 election, between Mr Kibaki and Raila.

Because 2007 was not a fair game by any standards, Kibaki and Raila were forced to share power, but the pecking order was clear.
The 2013 race was then supposed, in Raila's view, to tilt the balance towards the Lake in this political see-saw games, but instead the Kalenjins threw their weight behind Uhuru, echoing what Moi had done in 2002. It didn't help that the candidate again was Uhuru.

Raila doesn't believe he lost the 2013 General Election in round one and there are doubts out there too about this, and that is why eyebrows were raised when Jubilee fervently stood against CORD's demand that the dialogue they are pushing for should include IEBC.

By this, Uhuru's team seemed to suggest that the debate be confined to Parliament, where it boasts the tyranny of numbers.

It left no doubt it has no problem with IEBC, thereby setting another dangerous trend in the countdown to the next elections in 2017.

Yes, in 2013 Uhuru won, but his administration has performed below expectation with contradictions by its officials seemingly being part of their prescribed daily menu.

Indeed, it is sad when you have a government elected by the majority contradicting itself just like the quarrelsome Grand Coalition between Kibaki and Raila.

The Jubilee goofs are many; from the way it has behaved like Kenya was in the 1970s through to the 1990s where the media and civil society were kicked and spat on; the perception that tribalism and corruption is back albeit in a suave and "digital" way and many more.

All these have laid the ground for Raila's call for a return to the "trenches". This is happening just as Uhuru and team were settling into the most comfortable corner of the bed of power.

Their situation has been compounded by factors such as terrorism and economic instability they found in the pending-tray at State House.

But it is the shoddy handling of the issues that has created the perception that they are all still learning the ropes akin to treating malaria with aspirin.

It is obvious because of the foregoing that both Uhuru and Raila are wrong on this national dialogue. Raila appeared to talk down the President, a fact that would stir those memories, and make the son of Jomo recoil and change tongue, especially after his friends whisper into the ear.

But what Raila succeeded (assisted by Jubilee's politicians ) was attaching political overtones, based on our traditional tribal rivalries, to the issues facing the country today.

Uhuru on the other hand would have silenced Raila if he just appointed a team of technocrats, retired and respected and apolitical, to "advise" him on the issues Raila was talking about. But what did he do? His team gave Raila the ammunition he is spraying all over the torn Jubilee tent; the question, howeve,r is for how long will the "fear" we have been fed on that something "big" will happen, last?

That said, sadly, the only thing left for Jubilee (to bare the face of past governments), is to use teargas and guns on protestors. But we are not far from there, actually we are on the doorway, but please the spirit of Jomo is innocent.