Nasa's 'swearing -in' has exposed how fragile our democracy is

NASA leader Raila Odinga takes oath of office as the people’s president at Uhuru Park on 30/1/18. [Photo by Beverlyne Musili/Standard]

NASA’s ‘oath’ may have been painfully anticlimactic, what with the missing principals and a 15-minute ‘swearing-in’, but it had the unintended consequence of exposing Kenya’s democratic struggle. Most commentators have decried Kenya’s return to the Kanu era, sending me into gruelling self-reflection.

Growing up in the 1990s, I was too young to appreciate the realities of authoritarian regime. Before I could consciously interact with that political environment, the regime was gone. ­I was grateful, though, to those who came before and made sure my generation and I would never know the pains of dictatorship.