Ontuga

Today, Ruto signed the IEBC Amendment Bill, National Assembly Bill Number 10, into law. This was one of about eight National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) bills meant to heal the rift in the country and reform especially within the electoral platforms. The NADCO was co-chaired by @skmusyoka for Azimio and @KIMANIICHUNGWAH for Kenya Kwanza, with the blessings of both Raila and Ruto. If you are now outraged that Raila was at the signing ceremony, your outrage is several months too late, because it ought to have started when NADCO was formed. Listen, it is important to separate the excitement of the Gen Z revolution from the realities of the entity called the State. Young people running around town think that all the time Raila was robbed of election victories, he should have summoned phone-carrying youths to chant Kibaki Must Go, Uhuru Must Go and Ruto Must Go! But the state doesn't work like that. Even Ruto doesn't control all of it. To overthrow it, there are facets that go beyond raiding parliament or even State House. A casual observer would think that you can chant your way into power. Raila has been a central fixture of the change and reform movement for eons. He is the leader of a larger national demographic. He is Party Leader of the country's most consequential liberal and freedom movement, ODM. Importantly, he has his people. To expect that Raila can now just sit at Kerarapon Drive or Capitol Hill and await instructions from little children is to be naive. If the you are as powerful as you purport, why can't you make your own moves as Raila does his? Raila has a base that cannot wait for young movements to occupy this and occupy that. There is an even more compelling argument to this. Neither Raila nor his followers are responsible for this Ruto presidency. Those who put it here cannot therefore invite Raila to help them hate Ruto. At any rate, those who now want Raila to keep off Ruto are the same ones who asked Ruto to constitute the IEBC so that they can show him dust! How will he do that without the IEBC bills from both houses? Isn't the IEBC Amendment Bill part of the efforts to reconstitute the IEBC that they want, so that they can recall MPs, conduct by-elections and ultimately remove Ruto? What therefore is the problem if Raila helps navigate this part? The outrage against Raila today is led by people who have already declared themselves leaderless. Which means this is not meant for them. Nobody is going to invite 10,000 leaderless youths to a table of six. You have to make up your minds what you want. Even if Azimio people disown Raila now, there are ODM people and then there are his people across the country. Ultimately, he belongs to people, and his people don't get threatened easily on these streets. In fact, Gen Zs should be happy that their agenda had Raila's tacit blessings. Otherwise, unlike Ruto, Raila has people in Nairobi's informal settlements who know how to deal with threats directed at Raila. In 1997, as Raila played a central role in the IPPG deal, most naysayers said he was foolish to deal with Moi. But the far reaching IPPG minimum reforms before the 1997 election is what set the tone for all later constitutional changes. Most people don't know for instance, that before the IPPG deal, the ruling party used to take up all the 12 nomination slots in parliament. A lot of the past gains depended on dialogue initiated by Raila. We don't mind those who use other methods, but you cannot condemn Raila, whose foresight has been proved to be flawless. And everyone who declares that Raila has committed political suicide always returns with tail coiled between leg.