Raila Odinga's Cameo Role in Kenya's Debt Crisis: Has Baba Been Played, or Is He a Co-Player?

If you have been listening to Jimi Wanjigi, then by now you know that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto stole the KSh 6.4 trillion Euro Bond that has put Kenya in the deathtrap of debt that President William Ruto has been shouting our ears sore about.

Coupled with the sinister KSh 5.4 trillion domestic debt, our total odious debt now stands at an eye-watering KSh 11.8 trillion, invisible to the public eye and unaccounted for, and Ruto is still borrowing!

(In a feeble attempt at bravado—where he only ended up looking like a spoiled brat throwing toys out of the cot—during that humiliating press thing he called with Eric Latif, Linus Kaikai, and Joe Ageyo, who, glory be, succeeded in injecting further, a beleaguered and visually deflated Ruto threatened to borrow another trillion as payback for Gen Z twisting his arm and forcing him to abandon IMF's Finance Bill 2024. Dodgy math, considering the shortfall from the crashing and burning of Satan's Bill was KSh 344 billion.)

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu’s recent revelation that in 2023, Kenya paid KSh 1.44 billion in interest on foreign loans for which the country is yet to receive the funds only deepens the crisis.

Enter the doctrine of odious debt, which goes like this: If a despot takes out a loan at odds with the needs and interests of the people, in order to strengthen his despotic regime or suppress the population fighting him, this debt is odious for the whole people of that country. In other words, the debt involves no obligation to the nation: it's a debt of the regime, a personal debt of the power that took it out, and for this reason, expires with the fall of that same power.

Furthermore, the Constitution is very clear in Chapter 4: any loan the government takes that is not used for development is unconstitutional. So far, no one has been able to trace a shilling of UhuRuto's KSh 6.4 trillion loan to any project. Gathungu’s revelation that the money is yet to arrive in Kenya (how many years later?) points only to one thing: the KSh 6.4 trillion loan that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto took is a personal loan because it is at odds with the needs and interests of the people of Kenya, is not anchored on any development project, and, therefore unconstitutional; it involves no obligation to the nation: it is a debt of the regime, a personal debt of the power that took it out, and for this reason, expires with the fall of that same power. The simple reality that the money has not arrived in Kenya should settle the matter. Why would a loan that Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto take on their personal behalf reflect on any government accounts?

Now if you were in Kenya during the week leading up to the #OccupyParliament protests, then you will know that William Ruto was on the verge of throwing in the towel. He had evacuated his family to America, and was preparing for his last stand, because Kenyans planned, after breaching Parliament, to #OccupyStateHouse. It was all over. The Ruto regime was falling. (Remember: "The debt involves no obligation to the nation: it is a debt of the regime, a personal debt of the power that took it out, and for this reason, expires with the fall of that same power.")

But Uhuru Kenyatta was having none of it. The fall of the Ruto regime would automatically (and immediately) put a reimbursement invoice of KSh 6.4 trillion in Uhuru's hands; and if you know anything about the Kenyattas, they never give back. Just ask that poor plumber and his 1 million bob.

So, Uhuru hatched a plan: get Baba involved. By his own admission, Raila Odinga is on record that Uhuru Kenyatta called him to "intervene" as Kenya "was burning."

Except, Kenya wasn't quite "burning" like it was in 2007, when the very same Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto were pulling nefarious tribal strings behind the scenes, and Baba had to intervene, was it?

To get the full gravitas of Baba's statement, replace "Kenya" with "Ruto's regime": Ruto's regime was burning, and the cat would soon be out of the bag. Where did that KSh 6.4 trillion go? Because Nancy Gathungu has assured us that it is not in Kenya.

It was clearly in Uhuru's interest to scupper the Gen Z Revolution, what with it's innumerable and unanswerable questions, and keep Ruto in power, particularly with events in Bangladesh still dominating the news cycle. But what was in it for Baba, the official leader of the opposition, whose only job is to remove government, who only a year erstwhile had coined the #RutoMustGo mantra? Four CS slots in a government that he, more than any other Kenyan, knows is on its deathbed? Unlikely. There's more than meets the eye here.

If you, like me, have been struggling to rationalise Raila Odinga's inexplicable about-face and blatant betrayal of the revolution that he has waited 42 years for, and worked all his life to realise, especially (and very curiously) just one week after declaring that he was "a proud father" of the revolution, my advice to you is, follow the money. All 11.8 trillion of it.

Charles, get the rifle out. We're being fucked.