Raila's sickness shines spotlight on our floundering health services

ODM leader Raila Odinga during a past graduation ceremony. [File Standard]

Raila Odinga is so much part of the Kenyan fabric, and a few days without him being seen in public could raise speculation. And so it happened a few days ago. Yet rather than address emergent concerns, the Orange Democratic Movement’s excitable functionaries went ballistic against Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka and other opposition leaders, accusing them of peddling falsehoods about Raila’s health.

As blame and counter-blame were being traded, Mama Ida Odinga got ensnared in the ensuing vortex after she refuted claims that ‘baba’ was sick. However, the belated admission by Senator Oburu Oginga, Raila’s elder brother, that indeed Raila was sick and recuperating in India, has exposed the lack of social intelligence in ODM’s top hierarchy. Intellectual bankruptcy manifested in the wild chorus of condemnation by ODM leaders that addressed everything except the matter at hand.