Raila visits Nyandarua after Mudavadi

By PMPS and Digital Reporter

Prime Minister Raila Odinga visits Nyandarua Thursday to mobilise support for his presidential  bid and will visit the family of the late JM Kariuki.

Raila’s visit comes just days after his rival Musalia Mudavadi of UDF pitched tent in the area and lobbyied for votes.

But the two politicians carry different messages. While there, Mudavadi said the country can enjoy peace and continue to defend the same by their votes in the forthcoming general election.

Mudavadi who decamped from ODM to UDF says the March 2013 general election is a test that the country needs to deal with evils of tribalism, insecurity, inflation and youth unemployment threatening national cohesion and peaceful stability.

In Nyadarua tour, Mudavadi was accompanied by MPs Jeremiah Kioni, Nderitu Muriithi, Bonni Khalwale, former Trade Minister Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi, and a section of civic leaders led by chairman of Nyandarua County Council Paul Njihia Wangungu,

But Raila is  linking his visit to the ideals of JM Kariuki and his vision for social justice in Kenya.

 

Said Raila : “In the 1974 General Election, the late J.M Kariuki ran a campaign for the then Nyandarua North Constituency, focusing on social justice, education  and health, land and national unity among other issues.”

Raila repackaged JM’s salient points aheda of his visit. On Social Justice, J.M talked of the need for a system that ensures “every Kenyan, man, woman and child is entitled to a decent and just living” as a birthright... not a privilege.”

On Education and Health, J.M lamented that “Schools and health centres are unevenly spread out in the nation – both in quality and quantity.”

“We could ask how many schools and health centres we have started in Turkana; in Samburu; in Maasai and other areas. We could further ask how many children go to schools in those areas and how many ever reach high schools, and where. A comparison of the birth rate and the death rate in those areas clearly reveals the need to better the health services in those areas.”

On Land, he said:

“One of the glaring injustices of the colonial era was the virtually unrestricted settler-ownership of tracts and tracts of land amid a sea of land-hungry masses of indigenous people with either nothing, or fragmented plots for subsistence farming...The ownership of thousands and thousands of acres, and in some cases miles, by the settlers greatly inspired an undying and unquenchable determination of the African peoples to regain the lands in the hands of the colonial settlers. The Africans considered such ownership fundamentally wrong and intolerable and unjust...

“It is therefore unquestionably clear that the determination with which we fought and the death of many people of Kenya was not aimed at a mere change-over or substitution in ownership. It was more fundamental than that. Such ownership was socially and morally unjust and unacceptable. It was wrong then. It is socially unacceptable and unjust today. It is wrong now. I believe firmly that substituting Kamau for Smith; Odongo for Jones and Kiplangat for Keith does not solve what the gallant fighters of our Uhuru considered an imposed and undesirable social injustice.

In the wake of sharp need for land, a few people have gone in full force to purchase and or acquire tracts of land previously held by settlers. Titles have been issued to a few men; their wives and their children. The price of the land has risen meteorically. Land use has been minimum as many people have bought land for prestige and speculative purposes.

Overwhelming numbers of our people are without money; have no hope of getting a fair deal, and organised groups have, not infrequently, been out-manouvred by those with influence, connections and money. The situation has been disquieting. What should we do?

As J.M mounted this campaign, he had been banned by the Government from addressing public rallies for his own campaigns. He campaigned in Nyandarua North through pamphlets distributed by his wife Nyambura and other supporters. During that period, J.M retreated to Nakuru to help a friend, Mark Mwithaga with his campaigns. But in the end, J.M won the Nyandarua North seat by 16,000 votes against closest rivals’s 3,000 or 4,000. The following year, J.M was assassinated.

On National Unity he said:

“Kenya is one nation from the waters of the Indian Ocean to those of Lake Victoria, from Namanga to Moyale. The highest goal for any true Kenyan is national unity. We should not only preach it, but practice it.”

Raila in his tour of  Nyandarua County will pay a visit to the family of J.M Kariuki and lay a wreathe at his grave in Gilgil.

The PM will begin his two day tour of the County with a stop in Kinangop to visit Mukami Kimathi, widow of freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi and to meet some Mau Mau fighters.

Raila will later visit Nyambura Kariuki at the J.M home in Gilgil and later travel to Ol Kalao to open the renamed J.M Kariuki (Ol Kalao) District Hospital. He will later address a public baraza.

On Friday, the PM will travel to Dol Dol and Nanyuki for public rallies.