Introduction:
The continent of Africa is at the crossroads, its future hangs in the balance as the change of the guard looms at the African Union Commission Headquarters. At stake is its leadership to spearhead the continent over the next four to eight years when its current Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat’s term expires in mid-February 2025. The race to succeed Mahamat is a heated contest between Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga who is sponsored by Kenya’s President William Samoei Ruto, Djibouti’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, Mauritius’ former Foreign Affairs Minister Anil Gayan, and Madagascar’s former Foreign Affairs Minister Richard James. On the outset it appears that Kenya’s Odinga has an upper hand because of unprecedented sponsorship by President Ruto who has spared no expense to install Odinga as head of the African Union; pouring billions of Kenyan taxpayer shillings into Odinga’s campaign to succeed Chairman Mahamat, including expensive “charm offensive” trips to China and multiple other global capitals to lobby for Odinga’s election.
Africa should reject Raila Odinga at the AU and elect Djibouti’s Mahamoud Ali Youssouf instead. Odinga is a deeply compromised man with a repertoire of unflattering baggage unlike Youssouf, who by all accounts appears to be the most suited for the role as he explains himself in the video above. Youssouf represents the aspirations of Africa and not the self-interest and self-preservation epitomized by the Ruto-Odinga candidacy.
Truth is that majority of Africans are unaware of the behind-the-scenes political horse-trading that the two have undertaken to sway the election in Odinga’s favor; it has absolutely NOTHING to do with Africa’s interests but those of Kenya’s Ruto who desperately needs the win as a trophy to beat his own political headwinds ahead of the 2027 presidential elections in Kenya. You see William Ruto is notoriously unpopular in Kenya, and he’s betting his reelection chances on Odinga’s political base, the only way to Odinga’s base is through the African Union. To that end, the men entered into a quid pro quo political agreement to dominate Africa wherein Ruto will “install” Odinga as Africa’s President at the Africa Union in exchange for Odinga’s support in Ruto’s 2027 reelection bid, it is really that plain and simple.
Ruto and Odinga, once bitter rivals in the last general election in 2022 which Ruto successfully rigged himself into office backed by western powers, have turned Kenya into a massive failure, certainly not a model for leadership for Africa. Ruto has since turned on Kenyans and unleashed unimaginable atrocities against them including imposing crippling taxes on the population which has in turn crippled a once thriving economy. When Kenyans protested, he unleashed his predatory impulses of unimaginable violence including murder, kidnapping and killings, forced disappearances. Young people, the Gen Zs, have borne the brunt of Ruto’s brutality resulting in hundreds of slain youths and many more still missing. Ruto has even ordered the kidnapping of refugees and foreign asylees running away from torture in their home countries and returned them to those countries to be persecuted. All these happened on Odinga’s watch, he did not lift a finger or raise on objection because he desperately wants to head the African Union Commission at any cost including sacrificing innocent lives. Odinga exploited the youth protests last June at the height of Ruto’s atrocities by hijacking their agenda to ingratiate himself to Ruto for purposes of becoming the contender the AUC chairman.
The two men have now teamed up to dominate Africa as detailed in great specificity in this submission. We caution African leaders not to fall prey to their schemes or take the bait with their charm offensives. Ruto and Odinga are not the leadership model for Africa, learn from Kenyans themselves who have suffered and continue to suffer great injustices under the two men’s leadership. Odinga feigns ignorance of Ruto’s atrocities against Kenyans to secure himself the AUC Chairmanship. Truth is they are working in cahoots to retain power in Kenya and to dominate Africa.
This is a citizens’ engagement petition that comes from a place of anguish, anxiety, and destitution of the Kenyan people desperately yearning for liberation. To undiscerning eyes, the candidacy of Kenya’s former Prime Minister Mr. Raila Odinga for Chairmanship of the African Union Commission (AUC) would appear altruistic and driven by the desire to serve Africa but is that so? In Kenya today, the country is reeling from biting economic depression and social upheaval and that we believe African leaders of the AU member states must be alive to as they cast their votes for the next AUC Chairman. Truth be told, what you ignore, you enable, and we ask them to take this petition seriously, please don’t ignore it. It is a “caveat emptor” (buyer beware) caution from Kenyans to the AU with respect to Mr. Odinga. The government of President William Ruto stands indicted of a litany of ongoing mismanagement and human rights abuses ranging from endemic corruption, murders, abductions and forced disappearance to suppress critics, the list is endless. Yet, amid all the turmoil the country is being subjected to, Mr. Ruto, a perpetual campaigner, has embarked on his 2027 reelection bid in earnest, https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/ruto-s-re-election-campaign-triggers-new-alliances-and-rekindles-old-ties–4823324#story. It In his calculus, Mr. Ruto’s pathway to reelection is through the African Union by way of election of his erstwhile nemesis of Mr. Raila Odinga as the AUC Chairman. It is not a secret arrangement, they have made it obvious, they flaunt it.
Kenyans are pawns in their scheme and if African leaders fall for it, they will be pawns to be preyed upon as well. This is a cautionary submission to Africa’s leaders and citizens of goodwill who care about Africa’s future to be wary of the two men’s self-serving schemes that are detrimental to Africa and hopefully you see through them from Kenyan’s vantage point. Truth is Kenya is a failing state under the Ruto and Odinga coalition that desperately needs rescuing and the two men’s leadership should serve as an example of poor leadership to be avoided at all costs. Right, wrong or indifferent, Mr. Odinga is damaged goods, he has been rejected by Kenyans on all his runs for president over the last thirty years including the 2007 disputed presidential elections where he and Ruto (then on the same ODM party) masterminded Kenya’s Post-election violence against innocent Kenyans that resulted in the murder and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans. He has been rejected by Kenyans for very good reasons.
The men have blood in their hands and left to their own devices, will turn Africa into a laughing stalk to the rest of the world just as they have done to Kenya. We hope that you don’t fall prey to their tomfoolery with the wool they are pulling over Africa’s eyes. We know you are smarter than they think you are but out of an abundance of caution, you need to be reminded who you are dealing with. In addition to Ruto’s atrocities enumerated herein, he is a notorious pathological liar renowned in Kenya for his chicanery and silver tongue, these are the attributes he deploys to advance his interests. Unfortunately for Kenyans, they are paying a major price for falling prey to his schemes, do not make the same mistakes we made by elevating Odinga to the AUC chairmanship, electing Odinga as AUC chairman reflects Africa’s values; NOTHING good will come out of it for Africa, NOTHING. Please don’t GAMBLE Africa’s future with these men.
Ruto is employing all manner of tricks and expending billions of shillings that Kenyans ill afford, to elect Mr. Odinga for their personal benefit and we want to thwart that outcome because we believe that the potential election of Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga as the AUC Chairman, if it came to pass, will be a detriment to millions of Kenyans and by extension, the African continent at large. His election will destabilize Kenya and lead to internal strife and violence worse than Kenya went through in 2007-2008 post-election violence. Consequently, we are appealing to the AU to exercise its prophylactic powers to preserve and safeguard peace in Kenya by REJECTING RAILA ODINGA’s bid for Chairmanship at the AUC. We are asking, by way of this petition to you, the secretariat and member states, for your careful review and consideration of its contents to help you make an informed decision before casting your votes.
Overall Backdrop
Historically, Africa’s major decisions on managing Africa have been deferred to the political class in the upper echelons of governments. Kenya is no exception. The decisions have been invariably, an exclusive prerogative of the ruling class i.e., Presidents, Prime Ministers, high ranking officials, generally without public participation, in short, the “good old boys club”. The decisions benefit the club’s elites first and rarely trickle down to the people themselves. Unfortunately, this governance model has been ineffective in advancing Africa, in most instances the decisions end up being detrimental to ordinary citizens and Africa has lagged the rest of the world as result. This is a severe indictment of Africa’s managers, and as cliché as this may sound, truth be told, “Africa is NOT poor, it is POORLY MANAGED” by those who have been entrusted with her leadership. Africa is the richest continent of natural resources and yet remains poor in large part due to bad governance from the top. So, it should be no surprise that African citizens, as stakeholders, have a great interest and apprehension about the continent’s welfare especially at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. We need to turn the page at the African Union by giving ordinary Africans meaningful participation and input in the governance of Africa.
Our hope is that our input, at least in this instance, will be embraced and factored in your forthcoming electoral decision of the AUC Chairmanship. We acknowledge we do not have the financial resources to mount campaigns at the AU but our voices matter. Under normal circumstances, as Kenyans, we would be championing and advancing Mr. Raila Odinga’s candidacy but instead we are imploring you to REJECT him for the role because ironically, as discussed below, his ascendancy portends an existential threat to Kenya. Raila Odinga’s candidacy is orchestrated by President William Samoei Ruto whereby the two men have entered into a political pact to enthrone Raila Odinga as the AUC Chairman in exchange for Odinga’s support in Ruto’s reelection bid in 2027, it has nothing to do with Africa’s prosperity and for reasons outlined below, we are imploring you to elect someone else for the role, someone without the kind of Mr. Odinga’s baggage and background who will enhance the African Union’s standing and prestige in the world.
THE KENYAN BACKGROUND:
Mr. Raila Odinga is a household name in Kenya, with a long-standing repertoire as a change agent in Kenya’s politics. His contributions to Kenya’s democracy are tremendous, for good and worse. A mixed bag of achievements and failures that expanded the democratic space but also at immense losses to Kenyans. We are keen to give our leaders credit where credit is due while holding them accountable for their misconduct as in this instant. For purposes of this petition, we focus on Mr. Odinga’s background that renders him unfit to serve as the AUC Chairman. He is simply NOT the best candidate Kenya has to offer for the role under the circumstances. As expressed in the opening and enumerated below, Mr. Odinga and Mr. Ruto have a long history of political homogeneity and partnership not the least of which is their 2007 campaign for president in Kenya where the two conspired, coordinated and led the violent post-election violence that resulted in the murder and replacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent Kenyans in Rift Valley. Mr. Ruto, then Mr. Odinga’s devoted lieutenant, masterminded and commanded the violence.
For recollection, one incident that caught the world’s attention was the burning of Kikuyu Christian women children, and men at KIAMBAA Church in Ruto’s hometown of Eldoret https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/02/kenya1 , https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/world/africa/02kenya.html. For perspective, recently, in October of 2024, barely two years into power. Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga’s coalition regrouped and came back together, ganged up against the Kikuyu Deputy President Mr. Gachagua and threw him out of office in a sham impeachment. It was a lynch mob of the two men’s lieutenants in Parliament that generated spurious charges against Mr. Gachagua and hounded him out of office like a dog as part of a larger scheme to marginalize the Kikuyu community and replaced him with Ruto’s puppet, Mr. Kithure Kindiki. The charges they proffered against Gachagua pale in comparison to Ruto’s known atrocities of corruption and murder. The point is that there is real fear that the two men are conniving in a conspiracy that endangers Kenyans, and they are RUTO coopting the African Union to do their bidding. Kenyans are justifiably apprehensive that the Ruto-RAILA 2.0 coalition is a broader scheme to permanently marginalize certain tribes in Kenya. It is not just merely within the realm of possibilities but has a very high probability of recurrence as it did in 2007-2008. The AU must guard against becoming unwitting enablers and facilitators of the duo’s nefarious schemes. Electing Raila to the AUC Chairmanship potentially condemns and seals the fate of hundreds of thousands or even Millions of Kenyans to lives of fear, harm, and misery.
Enumerated Reasons to REJECT Odinga at the AUC
Curtail Ruto’s influence in Africa
Months into his assumption of office, Mr. Ruto positioned himself as Africa’s spokesman, a “celebrity president” who gallivanted across the world ostentatiously championing Africa’s interests. However, masked beneath Ruto’s affable persona is a ruthless, egotistic, malignant, vindictive, and arrogant man with an aura of invincibility. He is unfazed by any efforts to moderate his conduct and his public displays to the outside world are the epitome of tomfoolery and manipulation, smokescreens, phony show and tell showboating designed to elevate his own standing. This is evident because whereas he leveraged his silver-tongued gift of gab abroad as Africa’s spokesman, Kenyans at home were suffering under his leadership – it is irreconcilable, a non-sequitur. He may have fooled the world but through awareness efforts such as this submission, the world is catching on to his antics and you are invited to scrutinize for yourselves the character of the person Mr. Ruto and decide if he is the type to influence Africa’s decisions, https://kenyadiasporamovement.org/open-letter-to-washington-the-west-william-ruto-of-kenya-must-be-held-personally-accountable-reined-in/ William Ruto has turned out to be a BAD experiment in Kenya whose influence in the African continent must be avoided at all costs or kept to the bare minimum.
Waste of Scarce Public Resources
Kenya cannot afford the billions of taxpayer shillings that Mr. Ruto has diverted from desperately needed services such as healthcare, education, etc. to campaign for Mr. Odinga. We are cognizant that Mr. Ruto’s project i.e., Odinga’s AUC chairmanship is important to both men’s careers but theirs is a misplaced priority that deprives Kenyans of services they are entitled to and majority of them do NOT support it. The country is experiencing biting economic perils; worsening healthcare services and high patient mortality, failing education, unprecedented job losses, the list is long and yet the indifferent Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga have chosen to ignore and pursue their own personal political interests instead.
Odinga Hijacked the GEN Zs Agenda for selfish personal gain
This is perhaps the most egregious conduct by Mr. Odinga that has triggered most Kenyans ire against him. In June of 2024, Kenya was a global flashpoint; young Kenyans, the Gen Zs, took to the streets across the country to protest the 2024 Finance Bill that Parliament pushed through notwithstanding sustained public sentiment against it. The bill, bulldozed through the puppet parliament by Mr. Ruto, raised all kinds of taxes on Kenyans who were already reeling from a biting economic downturn and was. Kenya, and indeed Africa, witnessed a reawakening of Kenya’s brave youth who took to the streets in droves in protest. Spooked, Mr. Ruto unleashed a barrage of police and the military against the youthful protesters with grotesquely brute force, resulting in mass killings of hundreds of them. Many more were kidnapped and remain unaccounted for and presumed dead. Kenyans had publicly implored Mr. Raila Odinga, long touted as the champion of the weak and vulnerable, to stay out of the fray. Mr. Odinga hadn’t commented on the finance bill which was seen as a tacit endorsement. Rather than heed Kenyans call to stay out of the fray, unbeknownst to Kenyans, Odinga was in talks with Ruto behind the scenes where they entered a pact whereby Odinga will unilaterally intercede on the protests in exchange for his inclusion in the Ruto government.
Odinga, an unwelcome meddlesome interloper, then hijacked the GEN Zs agenda and issued a statement announcing that “they had agreed” to form a “broad based government” to end GEN Zs protests. Kenyans, the GEN Zs in particular, were especially shocked at Odinga’s brazen hijacking of their agenda, they had not been consulted or spoken to. To add insult to injury, they crowned this with the formation of the so called “broad based” coalition government that brought Odinga’s lieutenants into government in plum positions including as cabinet secretaries. Odinga himself was promised the African Union Commission Chairmanship. The GEN Zs or the common citizens were left in the cold, worse off than before. It was an act of betrayal on his part, a cardinal sin. He did NOT lift a finger or condemn the police atrocities, the murders, the kidnappings, or the forced disappearances that remain unresolved to date. Instead, he formed a coalition government with Ruto with a promise to be elevated as the AUC chairman and we believe the member states are pawns being manipulated by Kenya’s political ruling class.
RUTO – ODINGA Coalition Government Human Rights Abusers
Domestic – The “Broad based” coalition government the two men formed has continued to mete atrocities and human rights abuses against Kenyans. Mr. Ruto is a human predator who has established secret police that targets and kidnaps government critics, especially GEN Zs and their supporters for silencing/elimination. A recent news article reported that mortuaries, especially the Nairobi City mortuary is, for the first time ever, at full capacity with unclaimed bodies https://www.citizen.digital/news/drama-as-city-mortuary-declines-to-receive-unidentified-bodies-delivered-by-police-n350728. Ruto and Odinga have turned the country into an unsafe police state. Odinga, once considered the custodian of the people’s safety and refuge is uncharacteristically quiet because he is not only part of the cabal, but he is afraid to risk antagonizing Ruto and the AUC position which they have spent Billions of taxpayer shillings on. He kept silent when his voice could have mattered most and made a big difference in saving lives, instead he exploited the opportunity to catapult himself into lucrative government position for himself and his cronies.
The list of kidnappings, killings, and disappearances of both domestic and foreign nationals attributed to Ruto’s government is long as evidenced in the links below:
International
Anger over abductions mounts in Kenya
Kenya abductions spark huge public backlash | BBC News
Kenya abductions: Dozens missing since protests started in June 2024
Kenya abductions spark fears of a return to dark past
Turkish Refugee Kidnappings and Repatriation – Ruto’s abuse of human rights is universal, as recent as a month ago, his secret police abducted at gunpoint four Turkish refugees in Nairobi and deported them back to Turkey at the request of the Turkish government, which wants them on treason charges. The four were recognized by the UN as refugees and Ruto’s action was a clear violation of an age-old human rights principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the forced return of people to countries where they may face persecution. There are many other similar human rights abuses incidents that Mr. Ruto’s government is engaged in, Kenya refugees: Abductions and expulsions taint safe haven image. In all these incidents, Mr. Odinga maintained a deathly silence and by extension, condoned the atrocities.
Abduction and Repatriation of Uganda’s Opposition Leader – Several weeks ago, Uganda’s opposition leader Kizza Besigye who was visiting Kenya to attend a book launch was kidnapped by Uganda’s government operatives working in Kenya and forcibly repatriated to Uganda and turned over to the Uganda Military to be Court marshalled. https://apnews.com/article/uganda-opposition-kizza-besigye-kidnapped-military-jail-af3b7599b92f443abe0c756e84f67fe2
Once again, Mr. Odinga did not say anything or condemn the blatant human rights abuses of Besigye mainly to avoid antagonizing Mr. Ruto and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni.
It is worth noting that Mr. Odinga, Mr. Ruto and Mr. Museveni have a very close camaraderie that unfortunately epitomizes the terror they inflict on the region.
That speaks of Mr. Odinga’s character, if he can’t speak up when African human rights are abused rights are abused right in front of him, how would he advance Africa’s rights and interests globally? HOW? Please don’t condone this dangerous trend creeping up in Kenya. Voting for Mr. Odinga for the AUC chairmanship will amount to endorsement of the lawlessness and abductions that are turning Kenya into the Abductions Capital of Africa.
Purveyors of Dangerous Crimes and Lawlessness
Adani Deals & Criminality – It is now in the open that Billionaire Gautam Adani of Adani group of companies was indicted by US authorities over corruption. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-adani-green-energy-withdraws-planned-dollar-bond-sale-sources-say-2024-11-21/. Whereas he is presumed innocent until proven guilty, what most of Africa did not know is that the Adani Group of companies engaged in questionable deals in Kenya that are deeply troublesome and believed to be influenced by corruption and influence peddling where hundreds of millions of shillings was believed to have been paid to Kenya’s top officials at the highest echelons of Ruto’s government to award the contracts to the Adanis. The deals mortgaged Kenya’s critical infrastructure including the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to the Adanis for a fraction of their value. Mr. Odinga defended the deals as being above board while Mr. Ruto adamantly stood by the corrupt deals that would cost Kenya billions. It is only after the US filed criminal charges of corruption against Adani that Ruto cancelled them. For purposes of this submission, neither Mr. Ruto nor Mr. Odinga should be trusted to influence Africa’s future in any way, shape, or form, they are steeped in corruption.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s Assassination attempt – As discussed elsewhere herein, both Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga ignited, advanced, masterminded, and orchestrated the removal of Mr. Rigathi Gachagua from office over spurious charges. Mr. Gachagua has since gained popularity in the country and it appears the two men, not happy that the removal has backfired, it is believed they are trying to silence him some other ways including eliminating him. On Thursday November 28, 2024, Mr. Gachagua was violently targeted and attacked by state sponsored goons at a funeral in his home area of Limuru. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG2IUkC5ox0. It was not mere happenstance but a well-coordinated attempt at his life believed to endorsed by the two menhttps://www.citizen.digital/news/gachagua-alleges-assassination-plot-after-chaos-at-limuru-burial-n353865. You cannot have these two purveyors of violence and lawlessness influencing Africa, you just can’t!
Avert Civil War In 2027
As you may already know, William Ruto recently ruthlessly deposed his Deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, in a move majority of Kenyans believe undermined and invalidated their democratic will they exercised at the ballot box in August 2022 when they voted them as running mates on a joint ticket. In Kenya’s pollical dynamics, tribal politics are key in elections and larger tribes generally hold major sway in who wins elections. Mr. Gachagua, Kikuyu by tribe, the largest in Kenya, entered in a preelection pact with Mr. Ruto where they would come into office as President and Deputy President (DP) respectively. In the presidential race between Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga, Mr. Gachagua played a pivotal role in marshaling the Kikuyu vote for Ruto on the promise that Kikuyus will have a meaningful role in the new government through Mr. Gachagua. However, it was not to be, it was a trick by Mr. Ruto to gain Kikuyu support as he (Ruto) had publicly vowed to deal with the Kikuyu problem once he got power. You see, both Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga have had a deep-seated animus toward the Kikuyu tribe that culminated in the 2007-2008 Post-Election Violence in Kenya that saw the murder and displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent Kenyans living in Kenya’s Rift Valley, mainly Kikuyus. One incident that caught the world’s attention was the burning of Kikuyu Christian women children, and men at KIAMBAA Church in Ruto’s hometown of Eldoret https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/02/kenya1 , https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/world/africa/02kenya.html . Recently, in October of 2024, barely two years into power. Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga’s coalition came back together, ganged up against the Kikuyu Deputy President Mr. Gachagua and threw him out of office in a sham impeachment. It was a lynch mob of the two men’s lieutenants in Parliament that generated spurious charges against Mr. Gachagua and hounded him out of office like a dog as part of a larger scheme to marginalize the Kikuyu community and replaced him with Ruto’s puppet, Mr. Kithure Kindiki. The charges they proffered against Gachagua pale in comparison to Ruto’s known atrocities of corruption and murder. We do not hold brief for Mr. Gachagua, himself a deeply flawed man by any objective measure, however, the point here that Mr. Ruto and Mr. Odinga’s actions in this matter undermines democracy and the rule of law and you must be careful that the people who orchestrate this kind of treacherous chicanery are not allowed to influence decisions or spread it across Africa.
Mr. Odinga’s Lackluster performance as AU High Representative for Infrastructure Development in Africa
In 2018, Mr. Odinga was appointed to the role to spur infrastructure development in Africa and was expected to reel in investors to connect Africa but there is no record of any meaningful infrastructure initiative he initiated and help develop; it was the best opportunity for him to add value to Africa’s dilapidated infrastructure, simply put, he failed. He did not deliver. Truth is Raila is on the twilight of his life and is motivated by the need to leave a legacy but going by his background, his interests are not aligned with that of Kenya or Africa for that matter.
CONCLUSION
DON’T ALLOW ODINGA TO DRAG AFRICA DOWN. Your votes will have repercussions far beyond the AUC Headquarters, good and bad. The political climate in Kenya is fluid and volatile and Mr. Odinga is a political agitator that can ignite civil strife courtesy of the AUC platform. Harm to Kenyans if Mr. Odinga is elected as the AUC Chairman is foreseeable and we ask that you NOT to risk Kenyans’ lives by giving him the platform to do harm i.e., voting for him. Do NOT reward Mr. Odinga for his misconduct. We ask that you do NOT fall prey to Ruto and Odinga manipulation. We ask that you do NOT unwittingly subject millions of innocent Kenyan lives to harm needlessly. We ask that you err on the side of caution. We ask you not to be snookered in their tomfoolery. We ask that you REJECT Mr. Odinga at the AU.
