A life of service and fight for freedom: Raila's everlasting great gift to Kenya

This week the author of the universe has once more reminded us of the inevitability of our mortality, regardless of power and rank in society.

As a nation and a people, we are eternally obligated to honour the contributions of the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga for the freedoms and democratic space that we enjoy today. These were purchased through costly personal, social and economic sacrifices by the nation’s second generation of freedom fighters, of which Raila remains a towering giant.

With Raila’s exit from the stage, this effectively brings to an end the era of political leadership of the silent generation born between 1925 and 1945. The nation is now left in the hands of baby boomers and Gen X leaders with a lot of disquiet among the millennials and Gen Zs for the baton to be passed over to them.

While many folks are anxious as to what next, the perpetual design of life dictates that there cannot be a vacuum in the leadership of a society.

The succession tensions within the Opposition camp around this transition period is understandable, given Raila’s obvious lack of grooming of a successor to his throne.

The fact that he has reasonably lived a full life going by biblical teachings of 70 years for the life of man, his lack of grooming a successor probably marks the main limitation for his brand of leadership. This must serve as a key lesson for the remaining generation of leaders with a strong grip of political power for key voting blocs in the country.

In life, Raila was a key advocate for the recognition of the country’s liberation heroes that led to the transition of Kenyatta Day into Mashujaa Day, a public holiday.

In a strange twist of fate, he passed on in the week of Mashujaa holiday, left a Will for his remains to be interred within 72 hours, effectively placing his burial date within 24 hours to Mashujaa day. The gods seems to have aligned the stars for his legacy to be immortalised in the country’s league of heroes.

As implied earlier, the sustainability dictates of the human nature instructs us that a new leader will emerge to take up the work that Raila has left behind.

For this column, we shall not belabour trying to extoll Raila’s exploits or bemoan his misses as a leader. As a towering political giant in Kenya’s political scene for over four decades, there would be more capable individuals to tell the story of the man better than this column.

Therefore, in today’s piece we focus on what this column understands best in exploring the analytical scenarios that may shape the geo-political and economic order of what Raila has left behind.

On the economic scene, the death of a prominent leader at country level is analysed on the basis of adjustments to country risk. While Raila did not occupy the position of the President at his death, his role in the stabilisation of the Kenya Kwanza government, through the broad-based arrangement, from the rocky Gen Z revolution a year ago would be significant to the country business operating environment.

Assuming the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)is a key barometer of the financial markets sentiments, Raila’s exit does not seem to have disturbed the country’s markets, and thus investor sentiments.

The NSE key indexes closed on Thursday with the trends from before his death.

On the streets, despite thousands of his fanatical supporters coming out in large numbers and breaching security protocols at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the engagements with the security apparatus were restraint, except for the unfortunate incident at Kasarani Stadium.

This is unlike the deadly confrontations and destruction of property that usually accompanied his call for street protests on whichever matter he considered as public interest.

In grief, his loyal fan base has demonstrated great honour to his last public addresses to the nation calling for peace and the need to build a nation first before we could pursue our individual ambitions as citizens.

On the social scene, in the stillness of death Raila has left behind a huge void as a newsmaker and sports prominent fan, especially football.

This has earned him several names over the years, transcending from the symbolic fiery hummer to finally pass on as Baba, a father figure to his ardent supporters. Unlike his generation of leaders, we shall be eternally grateful that he left behind two autobiographies, The Flame of Freedom and An Enigma in Kenyan Politics where we can eternally hear his story from his own lenses.

It is quite unfortunate that some of his fiercest political competitors, later turned allies, former Presidents Moi and Kibaki exited the stage without telling us their version of the story. On this front, Raila takes the bragging rights.

On the third front of the political scene is where Raila then man is truly personified. From the darkest dungeons of the excesses of Kanu dictatorship, the enigma has walked like a colossus in Kenya’s political theatre over the past four and half decades.

Over this period, the man has been many things to many folks across the country. He fought many political battles, majority of which he lost, some outrightly cheated of him by dark forces. Friends and allies humiliated him. Sometimes it feels like he over trusted people he should not have in the first place. Yet, he rose up, shook hands that calmed turbulent and raw emotions in the nation.

It thus explains why his sudden exit has left a cloud of confusion as to the future of the country’s politicos. Obviously, from his last public appearances, age and maybe atrocities against his body from the detention days had taken a toll on the man. In truth, time ultimately erases the vigour in each one of us.

As a result, his choices, especially the last handshakes with former President Uhuru Kenyatta and recently President William Ruto have created doubt as to what he truly stood for.

The two regimes have erased economic gains of which he was a co-creator under the Kibaki administration, violated human and press freedoms that he fought for and has been the regimes apologetic for their noticeable incompetence, sometimes appearing to defend their corruption.

For this, questions will linger in the public psyche as to whether there is something that the man knew or saw that the rest of us failed to see. More fundamentally, a veil of doubt will eternally be etched into the public consciousness as to whether his heart was with the suffering of the masses that he now leaves behind or he commercialised their suffering for private political and economic power gains. Either way, he has turned the arc of our democratic trajectory.

Like every well scripted play or story, Raila exits the political scene in suspense. Maybe we were never supposed to understand Raila the man, maybe that is how he scripted his own story driven by the deep thoughts of his world in solitary confinement of the 1980s.

For now, we accept his great gift of freedom and democratic space with  sincere gratitude.

With heavy hearts the nation must let him fade into the horizon within 72 hours as per his final wish. To his family, close friends and Kenyans at large, this column salutes in his honour and says, poleni sana, sana.