I have recently encountered two interesting anecdotes from the early years of this republic.
The first is from an article by a historian-columnist in a local daily quoting declassified British intelligence files from the infamous 1964 mutiny by Kenyan troops.
The writer says that British functionaries in the Kenyan system, aided by their sidekicks in Jomo Kenyatta’s Cabinet, tried to associate the mutiny with Jaramogi Oginga, and went to old Jomo to have Jaramogi removed from government. Kenyatta told them off and refused to buy their narrative.
The second is from the late Njenga Karume’s memoirs, Beyond Expectations.
He says that ahead of the 1974 General Election, he, as GEMA chairman, had decided that the association would win all parliamentary seats in Nairobi, and worked day and night to achieve that.
When the results were out, Karume and his team had achieved exactly that, so he went to Gatundu to see the President, overwhelmed by the shine of his own glory.
He expected Kenyatta to pat him on the back for the fete.
Shock on him, Kenyatta fell just short of calling him a fool.
Karume was then given a lecture about running elections in a country’s capital, and the disturbing image created in a multi-ethnic nation when the capital has MPs from only one region.
I use these two stories here because the public perception widely created of Jomo Kenyatta and his regime is that they had no time for other communities and supposedly ran a hegemony that wouldn’t mind taking it all, given a chance.
The two anecdotes provide a glimpse to suggest that it wasn’t as one-sided as it is made to seem and that perhaps away from the usual presidential hangers-on, every President as an individual has a better national view than we usually think.
Kenyan politics and ethnic relations for the last 55 years have largely been defined by the 1966 Kenyatta-Jaramogi falling-out and the Tom Mboya assassination in 1969.
The two incidents completely poisoned the relationship between the Kikuyu and the Luo, the two communities whose unity had helped hasten the road to independence.
In subsequent years, political actors exploited this animosity to devastating effect.
In fact, many tribal lords from other communities took positions that were pro or anti either of the two, helping keep them apart while building careers and wealth from that division.
General elections since 1969 have turned into which communities will align with the Luo to tame the Kikuyu, or vice versa. In a sense, the Kikuyu-Luo falling-out was the original sin that set the country on the path of tribal and political hatred.
Over the years, leaders of the two communities have perpetuated this division for their benefit, and unknowingly provided fertile ground for complicated inter-ethnic relations across the nation.
Any time attempts have been made at repairing it, it has mostly come to nought because many more politicians benefit from the poisoned atmosphere than those who seek pacification.
But on a visit to Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Bondo home in 2009, President Mwai Kibaki rightly observed that each time the two communities have worked together, the country has realised tremendous change, with the dawn of independence and the 2002 elections being just two standout examples.
Given the deep political and socio-cultural differences we grew up in, many of us watching and reading about this divide could never bet on a sitting president from the Kikuyu community tapping a Luo to be his successor, in our lifetime.
The odds would have been totally improbable if that Kikuyu was a Kenyatta and that Luo an Odinga.
It’s truly surreal that we have lived long enough to see Uhuru Kenyatta actually point to Raila Odinga as his preferred successor.
The act of Raila sticking out his head for four years to help the president stabilize the country make the two probably the bravest men to ever walk this land.
This is despite the union sometimes appearing unpopular with Raila’s base, and that of the president ultimately decided that the ODM chief would inherit his seat, and thereby breaking the country’s oldest and biggest barrier.
In leading the orchestra, both turned their backs to the crowd and did what needed to be done.
You would be forgiven for imagining that with this monumental political development, the president doesn’t have to spend so much time trying to convince the former NASA principals — now in the OKA formation — to back Raila for president
They have all supported Raila’s run before and the consensus among them is that they won each time, but state machinery denied them victory.
It is, therefore, puzzling that when the instruments of state appear primed for a Raila presidency, the three should flee to pursue their own runs.
Indeed, if the Raila-Uhuru pact helps heal the original sin of ethnic divisions, shouldn’t his erstwhile partners see this as a new opening that makes their own future pursuits easier, especially if they can get Raila to do the proverbial “Mandela moment”?
This reminds me of a statement by former Kenya Wildlife Service director-general Dr Evan Mukolwe.
When fired as CEO of the state conservation institution he described the KWS as “like Somalia, a place of chaos, and those who benefit from the chaos don’t want it any other way”.
I am certain that on Kenya’s own political scene, the final healing of relations between the country’s friends-turned-foes-turned-friends, two main independence communities and later protagonists in the perennial quest for state power, portends bad news for players whose philosophy is to exploit this division to build their own brands.
But the ultimate crown jewel of the new Kenyatta-Odinga union is that Raila, the proposed beneficiary, is not even a bad candidate by any stretch.
Without sounding unduly hyperbolic, I honestly think he would be the most deserving holder of that office since independence.
This means that the act of healing the original sin does not merely give a leader picked just for convenience or matrices packaged around a tyranny of numbers, but a statesman whose liberation credentials are not in doubt even among his most bitter foes.
We have 10 months to watch the fascinating spectacle of both a president taking on his deputy in the run-up to a critical election, while also supporting an opposition figure to be his successor.
Many of us on front row seats of this showpiece will wonder how we got here, or even which of the two makes the more shocking process.
If I was to pick one, I would go with a Kenyatta attempting to hand over power to an Odinga as the dynamite political event of the century.
If wishes were horses, I would ask all other candidates to step aside until this massive fixture is done, but there are those who would never see a huge milestone if it slapped them in the face.
If the Uhuru-Raila union produces the next president, this country will never be the same.
Many myths will die on the way, many barriers will be broken, and a new chapter will be launched that will rival the country’s independence struggle.
Blow the whistle already!