With country sliding into anarchy after polls, leaders had no option but to unite

As the country was being treated to hard-tackle politics that had seen police in some cases clobber to death defiant Nasa supporters, intense negotiations were going on between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his nemesis Raila Odinga on how to end the animosity.

With the economy taking a beating from the protracted campaigns that had lasted more than a year and fearing a credibility crisis, Mr Kenyatta was persuaded by his handlers to embrace the opposition leader.

Interviews with a clique of trusted allies who were close to the talks revealed that the obtained material conditions showed a country going down the drain and in Mr Odinga, the President saw a partner to help steer the country from imminent collapse. Worse still for him, there were many loans like the Eurobond that were maturing and the government needed to borrow externally to start servicing it.

And since nobody wants to lead a country facing anarchy, Mr Kenyatta had to steady the ship. Mr Odinga, on the other hand, had almost run out of options. His base was fatigued after running battles with the police. ODM-aligned governors, who had sustained the opposition activities, had been starved of cash by the national government.

The question of legacy also influenced Mr Kenyatta into climbing down from his hitherto hard stance. It was a difficult decision to make, a close adviser once told this writer. He had to do it anyway.

Once the talks were initiated by elders as well as some notable members of their families who were concerned about the state of affairs as well as a leading government agency in what Mr Odinga late last year dubbed as “counsels of wisdom”, the duo frequently met in private locations before the final deal was made public.

Speculation that Mama Ngina Kenyatta, the President’s mother, National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director-General Philip Kameru and Mama Ida Odinga played integral roles in bringing the two together has never died down.

“They (foreign powers) had nothing to do with this. It was purely home-grown. We knew doing so after he comes or when he is around would have given the impression that it was the West that brought us together,” Mr Odinga said last December.

He pointed out that in his discussions with the President, each evaluated the consequences of the choices they had: For him declaring a parallel government with autonomy in his strongholds, at the risk of being charged with treason and sent to the gallows, and Mr Kenyatta, on the other hand, clamping down on him and his supporters in what could have ushered in anarchy.

“Remember the President had said anybody swearing themselves in as President would have committed treason, which is punishable by death. They had said they would arrest and charge me. The stage had been set. Both would have caused an implosion whose consequences are too grave to contemplate,” he said.

It came as a shocker to their handlers. Mr Kenyatta kept his deputy William Ruto in the dark, and so did Mr Odinga, who did not brief his co-principals in Nasa, Kalonzo Musyoka (his running mate in the August 8, 2017 presidential elections), Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula.

The trio had failed to turn up at Mr Odinga’s mock swearing-in on January 30, a decision that could have worked against them.

Mr Odinga would later explain that the motive was to cushion the delicate process from possible sabotage or interference. Except Mr Wetang’ula, the other two Nasa principals have since embraced the handshake.

He said the “the counsels” intervened just when matters were about to get out of hand given that he was also under immense pressure from a section of his advisers not to compromise.

“It is under these circumstances that the ‘counsels of goodwill’ prevailed and facilitated dialogue which culminated in the handshake. It would have led to a complete breakdown of law and order in the country. We lost about 350 people, some killed the day I was coming from the airport,” he narrated.

The handshake has since paved the way to the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) Task Force, which is now collecting views across the country on what Kenyans think is ailing the country. The prediction is that they may culminate in a constitutional referendum later this year or the next.