Can Raila Odinga have his cake and eat it?

That was vintage Raila Odinga tearing into President William Ruto. If the veteran opposition leader has been muted in recent months, he was in full voice while visiting victims of the ongoing floods last Friday at the Mukuru slums, in Nairobi, hammering the government over alleged mishandling of a national crisis.

Mr Odinga’s was not, however, just a polite request for the government to declare a national disaster and to provide alternative settlement and accommodation for those being ordered to vacate landslide and flood-prone areas. It was a full-throated assault on an administration he accused of wanton incompetence and corruption.

He aimed his vicious barbs not just generally at the government, or at cabinet secretaries and other government functionaries, but directly at the President, whom he accused of being clueless, incompetent and incapable of delivering on his mandate and running an irredeemably corrupt regime.

The opposition leader went to the extent of threatening a resumption of street demonstrations if force was employed to evict people from risky areas before they were provided with alternatives.

That was the first time Mr Odinga has uttered such fighting words since striking an accord with President Ruto on official government support for his African Union Commission chairmanship bid.

The tough language was noted from across the political divide. The big questions: Does Mr Odinga want to have his cake and eat it by attacking the President while still expecting government support for his AU bid? Is he effectively biting the hand that feeds him? Or is he signalling abandonment of the continental job quest and return to local politics of agitation and confrontation?

Mr Odinga followed the Mukuru statements with an assertion the following day at a funeral in Bondo, his home region, that winning the AU Commission chairmanship will not mean his complete disengagement from local politics. He told the crowd that the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is only a two-hour trip away by air, so there was room to work on the job from Monday to Friday and fly home for weekend political activity.

That was much like he said in an interview with The Weekly Review in February, when he asserted that the AU job would only be a “sabbatical”.

Side hustle

However, it made absolutely no sense for Mr Odinga to gun for the continental assignment unless he intended to give it his full commitment and attention. The African governments he needed to lobby for their votes would have looked askance at any campaign that approached the important position as just a side hustle.

The reality is that for Mr Odinga, at 79, the AU job was the ideal opportunity to gradually retire from politics with his head held high and his honour intact.

For his legions of supporters frustrated that five attempts at the presidency dating back to 1997 have not born fruit, the Addis Ababa posting would be adequate elevation to the ‘Leader of Africa’ than just the president of a single country.

An exit of that nature would work for him as it would for President Ruto, a smart and pragmatic politico who obviously seized the opportunity to ease his nemesis into graceful retirement and rid himself of a perpetual pest.

It was a win-win situation, which also came on the back of the National Dialogue process launched in July last year by which Mr Odinga agreed to halt a series of street protests that had virtually shut down Kenya’s main economic hubs.

The respite offered valuable breathing space for President Ruto to drive his agenda without undue distractions with Mr Odinga’s AU job quest coming as an added bonus.

However, Mr Odinga’s absence left a gigantic vacuum in opposition leadership. His own Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party was cruelly exposed for the paucity of credible alternatives while the broader Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Coalition Party floated around leaderless and rudderless.

Azimio co-principals Martha Karua of Narc-Kenya and Wiper chief Kalonzo Musyoka have tried to fill the void but by pulling in different directions as they compete to inherit the mantle from Mr Odinga.

Both have pledged to reignite agitation against the government misdeeds but the reality is, none of them, whether individually or collectively, can mobilise even a dozen protesters onto the streets ready to defy police bullets, teargas, truncheons and water cannons.

If Mr Odinga is signalling that he is ready to come back and reclaim his space ahead of the 2027 General Election, it stands to reason that he is quitting the AU quest. He can’t have it both ways: His AU prospects are dependent on active Government of Kenya support.

[email protected]. @MachariaGaitho