One of the constants of a colonial education was captured by a poem, “Try again”: Drive the nail aright, boys; Hit it on the head; Strike with all your might, boys, While the iron’s red. When you’ve work to do, boys, Do it with a will; They who reach the top, boys, First must climb the hill. Standing at the foot, boys, Gazing at the sky, How can you get up, boys, If you never try?” Well, Raila Odinga of Kenya had tried FOUR times to become the President of Kenya, but, sadly, he just failed in his fifth. He’s 77, so will he go for number 6 in 2027?!!
He followed in the footsteps of his father Oginga Odinga, who remained in the shadow of his rival Jomo Kenyatta and only went as far as Vice President. In Kenya’s ethnicised politics, he was a Luo, one of the larger Kenyan tribes to Kenyatta’s Kikuyus. With Raila’s defeat, a Luo still hasn’t become President – not an inconsequential fact in divided societies!! He lost to William Ruto, a Kalenjin from one of the larger tribes, and a millionaire who rose from being a chicken farmer to being a Minister in several past Governments.
Ruto’s seen as a master political strategist, and thought he’d hit the jackpot after teaming up with Jomo Kenyatta’s son Uhuru to defeat Raila, the eternal challenger. He and Uhuru publicly agreed that he’d support the latter 10 years and then have his turn. But before the second term was over, Uhuru did a famous “handshake” with his old rival Raila and supported him in the last elections. It was clear that having lost in a bid to allow a third term, he’d struck a deal to run the Govt with Raila as a proxy!!
But Ruto reinvented himself as a “hustler” – representing the majority of Kenyans who saw themselves as “hustling” to make a living – and Kenyatta and Odinga as the old deal-making “dynasty”!! The tactic worked, and in the Aug 9 election, with 22.1 million registered Kenyans eligible, Ruto received 7,176,141 (50.49 percent) of the votes, narrowly beating his rival Raila Odinga, who managed 6,942,930 votes (48.85 percent) and other candidates 93,956 (0.6%). Talk about razor thin margins!! Four Elections Commissioners – appointed by Kenyatta – said the 100.01 total indicated fraud: the Chairman pointed to rounding off!!
As he’d done before, Odinga’s gone to the Courts. The 2017 elections, with Uhuru winning, had been overturned on ballot-counting claims, and new elections were held after 60 days. This time Raila’s questioning the transmission of the data!!
Guyana should note that Kenyan elections’ appeals gotta be resolved in FOURTEEN DAYS!! Where’s ours??
…priorities
As a non-Christian school kid who was forced to attend church, he yet remembers the homily “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?” So, as we’re being overrun with infrastructural projects like roads, bridges, overpasses, airports, hotels (coming out of our kazoos!), he thinks, “What will it profit us Guyanese if we gain this bright new world yet forfeit our health??!! Yep!! We’re a looooong way from being where we could be; say like with Singapore’s health facilities and system!!
But we gotta admit there’s been some improvements, and – a Hallelujah anyone? – it was just announced that more’s on the way with an IDB loan of US$160 MILLION for “Improving Health facilities and delivery”!! That’s right, folks, our leaders are in so much of a rush to fix our health system that they aren’t waiting for the oil money to trickle in, but are willing to go out on a limb to get the funds!!
Now, if that’s not getting our priorities right, what is?? Hallelujah!!
…on agriculture
And here your Eyewitness thought that Suriname’s President Santokhi was a friend of our Pres Ali. If he were, would he rush to steal the latter’s thunder by offering land to Caricom for agriculture?? Jealous cogger!!
