It's time for us to quit Mr Odinga

There is a twinge of grief when we witness a towering man lose his so way very publicly. What we are witnessing with Mr Raila Odinga, Prime Minister, Doyen of the Opposition, indefatigable liberation fighter, political colossus and bugbear of presidents and governments, is saddening. In the immediate aftermath of the 2022 presidential election, there was a bit of public sympathy for his fifth loss. That sympathy has ebbed away since the shambolic way he prosecuted the presidential election petition. His latest gambit, admitting to have paid foreigners to compromise the IEBC computer systems in search of proof to satisfy his needs, might very well be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back.

It is one thing to refuse to accept the results of the election or the judgment of the Supreme Court. One can refuse to accept both outcomes. One might even deny the legitimacy of both outcomes. One might even mount a blistering attack in the court of public opinion against both outcomes. But in a modern democracy, one that was hard fought, it might not be in the public interest to undertake a sustained siege against the foundations of the constitutional framework a people have adopted for themselves.

What Mr Odinga and, to a large extent, what his acolytes and mouthpieces have done, is to not just deny the legitimacy of a presidential election and presidential election petition judgment, they deny the legitimacy of institutions of state that they themselves had attempted to undermine in nefarious ways. Mr Odinga appears oblivious to his efforts to undermine the presidential election, relying, as he did, on the active connivance of Sate officers who had no business campaigning for him or using public resources to do so. For him to turn around and declare that it is his electorally successful rival who misused public resources and compromised the election commission and Supreme Court, is a bit rich.

This is not to say tax the way the president is behaving is kosher. Far from it. But to expect him to not take steps to forestall a political crisis in his government is naive. That Mr Odinga and his colleagues int he minority are incapable of formulating a coherent strategy to counteract the president's overtures, to prevent the total subsuming of the legislature to the diktats of the presidency, is an indictment of Mr Odinga and his colleagues rather than proof of the president's political deviousness. Mr Odinga is so wedded to the idea that he could still be president that he has thrown all political caution to the winds and is now admitting to criminal conspiracies that in a mature democracy would have had him answering difficult questions before a magistrate.

Mr Odinga, by his behaviour, extends the hangover over the Westminster Model we abandoned over twelve years ago. It is because of his nuttiness that the idea of an office of the "Leader of the Official Opposition" is proceeding ahead in the National Assembly. Kenya's constitutional framework is no longer about the ruling party and the official opposition; it is about checks and balances among the three main arms of government: parliament, the national executive and the judiciary, with all of them being kept honest by constitutional commissions and independent offices.

But Mr Odinga is determined to paint the majority party int he colours of the ruling party if only so that he can continue to paint himself in the colours of an opposition politician. This mentality prevents parliament from playing its proper role of oversight, especially of the national executive, instead of becoming the handmaiden to the president, regardless of the fitness of the president's policies. In my opinion, the reason why the government has failed to formulate an effective famine response framework is because of Mr Odinga's intransigent grip on his identity as an opposition politician. Because of him, parliamentarians define themselves along the same line: ruling party versus opposition. And as a result, not a single member of the majority party has raised any significant query against the famine response by the national executive, leading to prolonged suffering across large swathes of the Northern Frontier.

It is time for us to quit Mr Odinga of only so that we can build the government we actually agreed to in the Constitution. The longer that he continues to hold us back, the longer we will be unable to deploy the checks and balances needed to hold presidents, their cabinets and their state agencies to accounts for their policies, programmes and projects. So long as Mr Odinga's mentality continues to undermine the role of parliament, harebrained white elephants like the Nairobi Expressway will continue to impoverish the nation.