The Truth About Raila Odinga's Military-Rigging Remarks in Dholuo Arriving at the meeting at Jomo Kenyatta Sports grounds, Kisumu where Raila remarks in Dholuo kicked off a serious ongoing political storm.What exactly did Raila Odinga say last weekend in Kisumu? The remarks were all in Dholuo to a very supportive and charged crowd and we know that translators can get sloppy sometimes or even just downright cheeky.
The security council which should be the best informed (otherwise we are all in trouble) went with the translation that Raila said that the military directly assisted in the alleged rigging of the polls. (For those who do not know, the National Security Council, NSC, is the supreme organ mandated by the New Constitution to be responsible for the security of Kenya and her people. The Council consists of— (a) the President (chair); (b) the Deputy President; (c) the Cabinet Secretary responsible for defence; (d) the Cabinet Secretary responsible for foreign affairs; (e) the Cabinet Secretary responsible for internal security; (f) the Attorney-General; (g) the Chief of Kenya Defence Forces; (h) the Director-General of the National Intelligence Service; and (i) the Inspector-General of the National Police Service.)The first salvo at Raila for his remarks came from secretary to the cabinet Francis Kimemia shortly after a meeting of the security council and that is very significant.Others present at the Raila meeting have a very different translation. What they heard Raila say in their mother tongue was that the rigging of the elections was akin to a military coup.
What I find most interesting here is the fact that the security council had just come out of a meeting where intricate plans had been put in place to thwart an expected major al Shabaab strike in either Nairobi or Mombasa which is expected at any time. You can be sure that these busy guys would not waste time and resources on a rumour and were acting on very credible intelligence. And yet they felt that Raila's remarks (nothing new except the mention of the military) carried enough weight for them to divert some effort to taking action on it. And yet if they had just shut up, most Kenyans would not even have known what Raila said. My friends that is extremely significant and I shall discuss it in a little while.If you are reading this and think that what I am going to discuss next is how the election was rigged and millions of votes stuffed then YOU ARE WRONG. That is NOT what happened for anybody who wants the truth. I would prefer to use the word "fiddled".But for now let's stick to the topic at hand which is what Raila said and why it has caused such a political storm when we should be more focused on what the al Shabaab are planning against us.My impeccable sources on the ground confirm that the second version (that the alleged rigging was like a military coup) is the correct version of what the former PM said.So why did somebody deliberately twist the PM's remarks? Interestingly the CORD fraternity has decided not to correct the twisted version and senator Otieno Kajwang even told a press conference yesterday that he saw the Military chief at the tallying centre in Bomas of Kenya during the elections. This is politics and trying to correct things here would make Raila and CORD appear weak and already back-tracking.
Just remember in future that when dealing with spooks and what they do, nothing is what it seems to be. The security council can be accused of many things and one cannot escape the fact that top security and intelligence people (who give info and advice to the security council) are all old men struggling to keep up with the times when most of their age-mates are either in retirement or semi-retirement. Still they are extremely intelligent and will not do anything without reason.I am convinced that the reason why it was decided to focus on Raila's remarks with a small twisting of the facts was to divert attention. The country is now at it's highest terrorist alert and the last thing you want is widespread panic amongst the public. The simple solution is to clog the news with the Raila furore as you release the terror alert
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