By Barrack Muluka
For avoidance of doubt, I have endorsed Raila Amolo Odinga for President. It is important that my readers should know this. That is not all, however, I have also accepted to serve as National Director of Communications at the Raila for President Secretariat.
I have worked in the mass media for the past 28 years.
Throughout this time, I have flattered myself with the belief that I was a paragon of truth. An ambassador of good. I therefore find it important that my readers should clearly know where I stand. When you occupy space such as I do, you are expected to be non-aligned to the political forces of the day.
Yet it is not exactly true that I have always been non-aligned. Of course not. I have never been intellectually and ideologically non-aligned. I am pro-reform, good governance and rule of law. This, in itself, is alignment on a continent that believes that there should be one stream of law for ordinary citizens and another one for the political and economic elite. That is why I have endorsed Raila for President.
Raila is not a saint. Far from it, he has made mistakes, perhaps many mistakes, in his political tour of duty. I know that he will still make many mistakes in the coming days, like the rest of us. In my own professional career, I have taken Raila to task as often as I have felt that he deserved criticism. I am satisfied that I have done a good job of that.
The day comes, however, when you can no longer sit on the fence. In any event, you might very well discover that there is no fence to sit on. You must, therefore, stand up to be counted.
Kenya is today perched at a historic crossroads. We face a very decisive election, at this crossroads. Each one of us must make a choice. We must choose to go forward or to return to the past. I choose to go forward. We must choose between our tribe and the Kenyan nation. I choose the Kenyan nation over my tribe.
We must choose between the rule of law and impunity. I choose the rule of law. I want to believe that the Kenyan nation shall triumph over the tribe and over impunity. However, in the unlikely event that the tribe and impunity emerge triumphant, I can live on with clear conscience knowing that we tried to save the nation. I can live on knowing that my grandchildren will have a family legacy to be proud of.
Raila is the face of reform, as I wrote last week. Yes, he has made mistakes. Reformists make mistakes, too, sometimes even great mistakes.
In mitigation, his intent has always been good. He has been pro-people, even when it has meant standing alone, or embracing those perceived to be his adversaries.
He has great capacity to forgive and to forget. While Kanu detained him without trial, he was willing to forgive those behind his incarceration and to try to work with them towards a better society.
It is instructive that people who had been Kanu insiders in Kenya’s darkest hour were more virulent and inclined towards vindictiveness when Kanu lost grip of power in 2003. It was Raila who publicly intervened saying, among other things, that the retired President should be left alone to enjoy peaceful retirement, without being burdened with witch hunting and vindictiveness.
As was the case in the 1980s when a few nationalists stood alone while everyone else sang songs of praise, Raila is once again standing alone, within the class of the national political elite. I was an adult in the days when the political class sunk the country in one party autocracy.
They all read from the same script and said appalling things in the praise of the government of the day. Only a few people like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Martin Shikuku, George Anyona, Chibule wa Tsuma, Mwashengu wa Mwachofi and Raila Odinga could stand up to them. They were incarcerated. University students were incarcerated. Others died in jail. People disappeared never to be seen or heard of again. Nyayo House witnessed very curious "suicides." Every week, someone was alleged to have "jumped off" Nyayo House. But the politicians told us that we were "lucky" to have the government that we had. We were "an island of peace in a sea of turbulence."
That is where we have come from. But we forget too fast, conveniently. When the champions of the ancient regime and their progeny begin regrouping, we even think this is a great thing. We surely want to forget the past and move on, don’t we? But how shall we move on when the past keeps on poking its fingers into our nostrils? Today the champions of the past are decamping from the Raila corner. Without any elaboration, they say he is a dictator. This is so that they can rob him of his greatest political card – the card of reform.
The good news is, however, that Raila now has a good chance to offer the Kenyan nation a new team of leaders. Five years ago, he described himself as a bridge to the future. The time had, however, not come – for he still carried a lot of baggage from the past.
This time round, he will be unburdened of this baggage. He can travel light and present before us the next generation of leaders. As was the case in the days of the Biblical Joshua, only a few from the Moses generation will reach the Promised Land. If some people elect to remain in the wilderness, you cannot come in their way. As in the days of Joshua, too, everyone must decide where they stand.
It is on account of this that I have elected to stand on the right side of history. If I should make a mistake, I shall make it on the right side of history.
The writer is a publishing editor and media consultant.
