Opposition leader Raila Odinga has strongly refuted accusations that he abandoned the quest for reforms in the country after calling for truce with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Mr. Odinga on Tuesday evening maintained that his rallying call on the journey to Canaan was still on, adding that there was no contradiction between what he is currently pursuing and what he advocated for before the 2017 election.
Speaking on Citizen TV’s News Night show, Odinga said during the crafting of the unity deal, they agreed with Kenyatta to have all Kenyans delivered to Canaan — a better country free of corruption, ethnicity, electoral injustice and other vices.
“There is no contradiction. We did not want to do this to the exclusion of other Kenyans. It would have been us versus them and this is not healthy for a multi-ethnic country. What we are doing is not in contradiction with our original stand… We want to get the entire Kenyan nation to Canaan,” said Odinga
“We agreed with President Kenyatta that we need to bring our two forces together and then look at these other issues dividing this country.”
In the run-up to the 2017 election, Odinga had assured his supporters that, like the biblical Joshua, he would redeem his followers from Egypt and take them to Canaan, which at the time referred to freedom from an oppressive regime.
Odinga denied claims that he is part and parcel of the government as claimed by some of his critics, noting that he is still the opposition leader.
He maintained that he had, in no way, betrayed his supporters by calling an end to the highly polarised political activities that were characterised by protests and product boycott.
The opposition leader claimed that the demands he was making prior to the handshake were factored in during the unity talks that ended the political stalemate that had rocked the country early this year.
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