Raila: I have a damaging dossier on Jubilee government

Nasa flag bearer Raila Odinga wave to his supporters outside City Hall after he held a meeting with elected leaders of Nairobi on 19 May 2017 in Nairobi. Photo by Edward Kiplimo/Standard.

NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga has promised to unearth a mega scandal in the Jubilee administration next week.

He said the current leadership has been riddled with too many scandals, the reason for the waning popularity of the Jubilee administration.

“We have had the Eurobond scandal, National Youth Service (NYS) scandal, the Afya House scandal and lately the price of maize flour, which has gone up beyond the reach of many,” said Raila, adding that many Kenyans had lost faith in Jubilee leadership.

Raila was addressing ODM aspirants from Nairobi County who participated in the recently concluded party primaries at City Hall, Nairobi.

He did not give details of the scandal he promised to reveal.

Complaints

He said while there were complaints arising from the party primaries, it should not be forgotten that in established democracies like England, every major party has its own mechanism of getting its nominees.

“We have not yet got to know the distinction between party members and party supporters. For one to be a party member it means you share the same ideals of the party. What we have here is majorly supporters who will agree with the party in one election year, and move to another political party the following election year when they disagree with it,” said Raila.

The Charter Hall was parked with the ODM aspirants, most of them being a rather large and bitter group of those who lost in the primaries.

Raila blamed the shambolic ODM primaries, which have led to dozens of complaints from the aspirants, on the Jubilee Government, saying it pushed for party primaries to be held around the same time as it feared those who lost would jump to ODM.

“Jubilee brought the legislation by force to Parliament because it wanted to curb party hopping. This is what created all the mess because party nominations this time round became more of elections,” he said.

He said that while it is easy to blame the party’s elections board, the candidates contributed more to the shambolic nominations. “Nairobi County ODM primaries, for instance, had to be postponed after goons raided the warehouse and destroyed the election materials just a day to the exercise. Do you want to say that was the fault of the elections board?” posed Raila.

He said the goons who raided the warehouse were obviously sent by the candidates who were to take part in the primaries.