RAILA SWEARING IN DRAMA
EXCERPTS FROM MUSALIA MUDAVADI’S BOOK SOARING ABOVE THE STORMS OF PASSION
Raila left for the United Kingdom and United States for about a week. It was a personal private trip which he used to hold consultations here and there about NASA. On 17th November, several of NASA supporters went to receive him at the Airport despite the States plan to bar people at the Airport. We linked up with him at the flyover next to Ole Sereni. The people chanted songs and encouraged us to swear in Raila as their President. We had planned to hold a rally at Uhuru Park but the whole area was cordoned off. Jubilee leaders thought we were going to do the swearing in that day. A number of bullets were fired directly at us. Fortunately the cars were bullet proofed and apart from the dents they suffered, we remained safe,
The clarion call was “Wakiapisha tunaapisha”,. Now that the second Presidential petition was lost, the logical thing was for Uhuru to take the oath of office. Where would this leave us?. We felt lost and helpless. In our consultative meeting our first among equals, Raila looked lost. He groped around for almost anything to hold on. ” What will we tell the people?” he kept asking. “We must find something that will give our people hope”, he would say, restlessly fidgeting with stuff on the table. At this point he listened attentively for any suggestions around the room.
The swearing in became a protracted debate in the NASA innermost sanctums. Barrack Muluka, the new ANC Secretary General put it starkly. Did we intend to take over Government or were we putting on a show of protest, If we intended to takeover, were we ready to stay the course for the long haul. Were we ready to walk Kenyan youths into State bullets. We must know that we were now preparing to be a militia movement. We would need to think about things like capturing State officials including the President and the entire Cabinet. We would also need to take control of broadcasting airwaves. Were we ready to do all these things?. Did we have the capacity. Did we have any detachments of the defence forces ready to rally behind us. If this was the way we wanted to go, we must make it very clear to ourselves as the core NASA team. The meeting agreed that this was not what we wanted. Raila explained that what was necessary was to keep the Government on its toes without tearing the fabric of the nation.
The announcement of December 12 as Raila swearing in date took me by surprise. He had not consulted with any one of us, the co-principals in NASA. Wetangula and I met Raila the following day. He apologized to us for the ambush. On 10th December, we held a consultative meeting with Raila and Wetangula and agreed to call off the swearing in thing once and for all. The thinking was, since Kalonzo was out of the country, we could make this as an excuse since the President had to be sworn in with the Deputy President. I tried to reach Governor Kibwana to inform him of this new development but the Governor hit the roof. why were we using Kalonzo as a scapegoat, he quipped?, could we not see we were setting him up justifying the watermelon tag?. We would have to find another excuse, he said.
Meanwhile, Raila had gone out of circulation. He could not be reached on phone. I would learn later that as we were preparing to call off the swearing in, Raila was in fact at Jimmy Wanjigi’s residence in Muthaiga, with a number of family members and a few friends. The object was to record a private swearing in, which would be circulated to the media stations and on the internet. I learnt from on of the people present that Raila seemed to have been very shocked to watch us on TV, calling off the swearing in sine die. He is reported to have said, “Oh, so they are calling it off?”. At this point, the swearing in at Muthaiga was also called off .Before we had left for Okoa Kenya from my office, he had called me to ask why we were taking too long to make the announcement. Instructively, there was no senior ODM official at Okoa, except the Executive Director, who had also participated in drafting of the statement. to be continued………………..