Kipchumba Murkomen:The irony of Raila superimposing his aggression and rejectionism on Uhuru

If nothing else you can’t say that Raila Odinga doesn’t have clever campaign staff managing him, which appears to love the sight of pure irony.

For many months now Raila’s spin-doctors have put in place a clever strategy of attacking anything to do with the elections or electoral process. No institution has been spared the wrath of the 72 year old’s tongue lashing, whether it is the IEBC, the court system, the constitution, the KDF, paper printing companies and even KPMG, one of the most respected auditing forms in the world.

Raila’s plan all along is to create as much doubt and skepticism surrounding the electoral process that come August and he loses, as every single poll indicates he will, he will be able to rally and enrage his most militant supporters into disputing the elections.

Unfortunately, the dispute will probably not merely involve court proceedings.

Around a year ago, Former Nairobi mayor and ODM leader George Aladwa was caught on video saying that a few people will have to die for Raila to be president in 2017.

Nasa supporter David Ndii followed this up recently by taking to his Twitter page to declare that “If Uhuru Kenyatta is declared winner in another sham election, this country will burn.”

Moreover, following the recent passing of Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery, it has come to light that the former ODM legislator for Kajiado Central thwarted an attempt by his party to form “a government” in the wake of the disputed 2007 elections.

Former Narok South MP Nkoidila ole Lankas revealed how Nkaissery blocked the party leadership’s plans to take over the country by forming a parallel government as ODM wrestled then President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) after the disputed polls.

“All elected MPs were rounded up and forced to converge in the old chambers of Parliament. Then Secretary General Anyang’ Nyong’o asked them to sign some form that would have seen ODM form a parallel government,” disclosed Lankas.

“But Nkaissery stood up and differed with Nyong’o. He told him what he was trying to do was nonsense. He was not going to append his signature on the document.”

Although some tried to resist his defiant position, being carried away in the heat of the moment of what they believed was a stolen election, they later agreed with him that such a move could have caused anarchy.

So with Raila building on such a long history of rejection of election results leading to violence and possible anarchy, he has had the temerity to accuse his rival Uhuru of preparing for defeat after he made a singular criticism of the judicial process.

Uhuru, for the first time in his many months of campaigning day and night cautioned the judiciary not to allow the opposition to use courts to sabotage the election process. Many recent decisions by the judiciary appear to have gone ODM’s way, and Uhuru was troubled by some of these seeming inconsistencies.

Some have even suggested that High Court Judge George Odunga, who has been at the centre of many of the controversial decisions that the opposition politicians have filed, should have excused himself from involvement in these cases.

NASA lawyer and Siaya Senator James Orengo, who has featured as a lead lawyer in virtually all disputes, is Odunga’s relative. Odunga’s wife is Orengo’s niece.

This alone should have led to his self-disqualification, if even just to set aside any claims of unfairness or nepotism.

Regardless, there is a yawning chasm of difference between a presidential aspirant who has a record of using violence to attain political goals, has threatened that people will die or the country will burn if he is not declared the winner, and a presidential aspirant who makes one, demonstrably provable, objection to some recent judicial decisions and the way they were handled.

By claiming that these comments by Uhuru means he is planning for defeat, Raila is cleverly trying to erase his embarrassingly problematic rhetoric and superimpose them on his competitor.

African-American social reformer and statesman Frederick Douglass once said: “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.”

Raila has yet to make a compelling or convincing argument about why he should lead Kenya, so he has taken the route that has served him best in the past, disputing and dissenting from the democratic process.

While anyone familiar with Raila’s decades in politics would know that this is almost to be suspected, accusing Uhuru of this tactic is one of the most scorching of ironies in these Kenyan presidential elections.