ODM party leader Raila Odinga. /CFM-FILE.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 1 – Kenya’s foremost Opposition chief, who has previously served as Prime Minister, Raila Odinga has vowed to intensify calls for accountability, this New Year, in what is promising to be a politically busy year for the country.
In his end of year statement, Odinga said he is looking forward to a renewed commitment to fighting corruption and what he terms as its “unrelenting networks in the country”, to save billions of shillings looted annually from the public coffers.
“I equally look forward to sharing ideas on and supporting all efforts to address poverty, marginalization, and unemployment of the youth and rising cost of living,” Odinga said, “Unity for common good will be critical if we are to create a nation in which right is right and wrong is wrong. So far, unity has worked with the war on corruption.”
In a recent interview with a local TV station, Odinga dropped the bombshell, declaring “(Deputy President) Ruto must step aside to pave way for investigations on his wealth.”
Alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta, the two are set to rally the country behind the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report launched in November, but which is yet to be distributed formally to the public.
Among the New Year prospects, Odinga said, is to push for the end of marginalization of communities and regions as well as the restructuring of the country’s mode of governance which will include strengthening of devolved units.
“By and large, Kenyans have agreed that individuals should carry their own cross of graft. I thank our people for this and encourage them to carry this spirit into 2020 and beyond if we are to make corruption a costly and useless venture,” he asserted.
It is a year the President Uhuru Kenyatta urged politicians to confront the problems facing the country soberly, without creating divisions among Kenyans.
“It must be clear to all of us that as a country we cannot preach and sell negativity while at the same time pray to create and hope for opportunity. By us together accepting our challenges should form the basis not for division but rather a clarion call of how we must come together in order to turn challenges to opportunity and prosperity,” the President said in his televised New Year speech.
National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi said “the New Year offers an exciting opportunity for a fresh start towards achieving “our dreams and a time to reflect on the past year. Let us remember that all our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”
While the political table seems to be full, Kenyans also hope to see measures the Government intends to take, to cushion them against a biting financial time, occasioned by an ailing economy.
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