Detained, exiled, abused: Raila's political journey has been heartbreaking

To be Raila Odinga can be a thankless affair. This man Raila qualifies for a tragic hero. His life is rich with narratives of painful strife whose end is difficult to classify with finality. What have been the rewards of his struggles? Is he the mythical Sisyphus who must world-without-end push a huge rock up the mountain, only for some angel of mischief to push it down again? Raila first caught the Kenyan national limelight in the wake of the 1982 coup attempt in Nairobi. The daily press reported, in the crackdown on the elements of the Kenya Airforce behind the coup, that Jaramogi Oginga Odinga's son had been arrested in connection with the failed coup. He was meant to stand trial before the courts. But, just as quickly, he was shoved into detention without trial. He has explained in his autobiography that he was fighting for a democratic country with a responsible government. His book, The Flame of Freedom, makes for painful reading. It is the narrative of a family under siege, before successive regimes. Their hopes rise and fall, to rise and fall again. His father's involvement with the nationalist movement that brought independence in 1963 is common household knowledge. Here was one man who told a British journalist, before independence, that there would be no independence in Kenya without Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. If it is common sometimes today to hear such mantras as, 'No Raila, no elections,' or 'No Raila, no peace,' his father was the author of the 'No Kenyatta, no uhuru' mantra. Flipped over, the mantra went in Kiswahili, 'Uhuru na Kenyatta.' But when the two elder statesmen fell out ideologically, Jomo orchestrated the overthrow of Jaramogi from his position as second in command, beginning with the Limuru Conference of February 1966. The man who lived only a heartbeat away from the ultimate authority in the land was suddenly cast in the deep end of the Opposition. He would remain here for the rest of his life; now seeming to make comebacks, but just as suddenly being rolled back like the Sisyphean rock. Jaramogi would end up in detention, the dreaded place that he had ever so gallantly campaigned that Kenyatta should be freed from. Now, it was the same Kenyatta detaining him, following the fracas of October 1969 in Kisumu. And when he came back, he was a marked man. Kanu, now the only party in the country, would not allow him to run for any office. His businesses were in shambles, frustrated by the State. Meanwhile, his second-born son, Raila, was struggling, dividing his time between working at the University of Nairobi, and trying to set up a gas cylinder production plant in Nairobi's industrial area. It was this son who would go on to inherit Jaramogi's political mantle, and some would say tribulations. Like his father, he would mark time in detention without trial. Apart from the 1982 coup detention, he would be bundled back there in relation to the Mzalendo Mwakenya activities of 1985-86. He has told the painful narratives of his incarceration in the infamous Nyayo House cells and torture chambers in The Flame of Freedom. The reading itself is energy-sapping. The Flame of Freedom drains you emotionally. It fills you up with a sense of helplessness and brings you close to a loss of faith in the goodness of human beings. It should not surprise that when the man comes out of detention this time round, he flees into exile in Europe, until the one-party state has been defeated. For staying around, he says, would have earned him a third stint in the dungeons. There is a sense in which it would be expected that such an individual would perhaps crown his strife by occupying the highest office in the land. Yet, this has been the most elusive mission in his life. In the ended campaigns, some flattered him with the thought that he had done a Mandela thing for Kenya. Some of the narratives were clearly exaggerated. Perhaps out of sheer ignorance of history, or by overzealous supporters - and even freeloaders keen to fly on his coattails. Yet, his strife cannot be gainsaid. The gravity is magnified by the agony that his wife, Ida Odinga, underwent during his Mwakenya detention. She worked then as a teacher at The Kenya High School. Older Kenyans will recall how she was 'retired in public interest.' She was ejected from a government house she lived in with her children in Nairobi's Kileleshwa. She had suddenly become the symbol of the struggle. At some point, Mzee Jaramogi issued a press statement whose thrust was a plea to President Moi to, 'Please leave my son and his family alone, and deal with me one on one. Face me.' Rather ironically, father and son would in subsequent times seek collaborative working arrangements with President Moi and Kanu. More ironic is that they sought Moi out rather than work with the rest of the Opposition. Former Makueni Governor, Prof Kivutha Kibwana, then an NGO pro-democracy activist, accused Raila of frustrating the Opposition's efforts to democratise the country. But Raila explains in The Flame of Freedom that this was a strategic move. He wanted to rock Kanu from within. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was not. Perhaps it was only serendipitous that his dream of being crowned Moi's heir having failed, Raila had enough Kanu MPs willing to bolt from the innermost chambers of Kanu that he had finally worked himself into. His sojourn in Kanu had confounded friend and foe alike. He was increasingly sounding like the familiar Kanu hawks, only doing the hawkish things with the extraordinary zeal of the newly converted. But alas, Kanu imploded. Away from political tribulations that have refused to reward him with glory, Raila, like everyone else, has had personal challenges at home. A man who sleeps little at home and has to catch up with his sleep at long, boring public meetings, where nothing new is said. Looked at from a sincere place, his is the story of a tragic hero. Dr Barrack Muluka is a strategic communications advisor www.barrackmuluka.co.ke

Detained, exiled, abused: Raila's political journey has been heartbreaking

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Detained, exiled, abused: Raila's political journey has been heartbreaking

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