Kenya's candidate for AUC chairperson seat Raila Odinga/FILE
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has denied reports that he is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Gen Z-led anti-government protests.
Speaking on Friday, Raila termed the allegations as useless and that they are made up by the media.
“I am not a beneficiary of the Gen Z protests. These have been useless allegations made in the media. I've not benefited,” he said on Citizen TV.
He explained that President William Ruto said he wanted to have a broad-based government after he dissolved his cabinet and asked for people from the opposition party Azimio.
Raila said he consulted his Azimio coalition partners, and while some people agreed to the idea, others refused, and that is when his party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), decided to second some of its members.
He further explained that no negotiations for a coalition were made and that members of the ODM IN Cabinet were given the jobs on merit.
He insisted that while they relinquished the positions they held in the party hierarchy, they remain members of ODM to date.
“What happened is that President Ruto said he wanted to involve a larger society in governance and asked if we could give him people from our party, and I consulted other colleagues in the Azimio coalition, and some were ready and some were not, and then we basically seconded some of our people to the government to work, but it was not like forming a pact.
“It was not a coalition because we did not sit down and negotiate. These people were just hired on their merit and had to relinquish their positions in the party but remain members of the party,” Raila said.
The former PM, however, noted that while the President may have deflated the Gen Z protests by firing his cabinet and reconstituting it, more consultations still need to be done.
He said that while he had proposed a national dialogue, the youthful protesters refused to come for the dialogue.
