Missed goal: Of Raila, football metaphors and the presidential election
Former Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga. His story with Kenya is about love — and, being about love, heartbreak. His latest audacious but ultimately doomed attempt for the presidency — so close, yet so far — has inspired a fresh round of tears from his supporters.
What you need to know:
- Was the last presidential election the final match for Kenya’s enigma of politics?
- One of the showstoppers was Mr Wetangula’s deadly volley of 255,906 votes (63.16 per cent) from Bungoma County.
- What options does Mr Odinga have? Though he is a master of comebacks, if he chooses to exit Kenya’s politics, he would only have seen the land of redemption song from a distance.
“On November 10, 2001, Diego Armando Maradona played his final testimonial match, in Buenos Aires. For those unacquainted with the tradition, testimonials are tribute games, played for adoring, nostalgic fans, in which friends of the honoured player jog leisurely around the pitch, allowing him one more moment of glory…
In his prime, Maradona could flit past defenders with sublime ease, but now, at forty-one, he was overweight, with bad knees and bad ankles, and had been fighting drug addiction for nearly two decades.
The opposing players indulged him, stepping aside as he lumbered by. He scored two goals that day…
A few days later, in Lima, Peru, I visited a cousin of mine. At the mention of Maradona’s farewell match, he fell into a reverential silence, his eyes suddenly watering.
‘Diego is going to die,’ he said in an urgent whisper, the words tumbling out with the force of discovery as if Maradona’s mortality had never occurred to him,” so wrote The New Yorker’s Daniel Alarcón about the now-departed football legend, Diego Maradona.
I thought of Maradona’s last match in relation to former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the recent presidential election.
Hon Odinga is an avowed football fan and enjoys using football metaphors to fire up political rallies.
Raila's final match?
Was the last presidential election the final match for Kenya’s enigma of politics?
A legend of unparalleled stature, Odinga’s storied profile has been cut with many strokes of the chisel and the results are aged elegance, a mercurial look and suppressed turbulence.
He is adored by millions of Kenyans. In fact, adored with a touch of fantasy that’s stupefying, with a baffled extravagance that goes beyond his superb accomplishments as a warrior for democracy to the realms of myth.
Odinga’s supporters expected him to win the presidency in August. He had marshalled supporters in frenzied rallies.
The campaign song Lero ni Lero was sweet and lush and overpowering — rambunctious, defiant, rapturous and rising faster and fuller like an ecstatic call to action.
He serenaded with his famous “Haaaaiya” to silence noisy fans to allow him to speak. He brawled. He scuffled. It was not enough.
Unlike Maradona during his last match, when opponents moved out of the way for him to score, Hon Odinga’s team was arrayed against Dr William Ruto’s line-up.
As soon as the referee, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), started the match, a commotion broke out.
Were the presidential election a football match, Mr Odinga would have controlled the ball and deftly flicked it, only to manage a shot that narrowly missed the goal.
Dr Ruto would have been what The Guardian newspaper’s Barney Ronay would have described as a tackle machine that dealt with “gruelling, high-energy stuff”.
Dr Ruto, Mr Rigathi Gachagua, Mr Moses Wetangula and Mr Musalia Mudavadi made a four-man blitz that nipped and snapped at Mr Odinga’s heels to what, at first, looked like a draw.
One of the showstoppers was Mr Wetangula’s deadly volley of 255,906 votes (63.16 per cent) from Bungoma County.
However, Mr Odinga’s teammate, Hon Kalonzo Musyoka delivered a deluge of votes from his Ukambani backyard that initially prevented Dr Ruto from running riot in the field.
Though earlier ridiculed as a watermelon, Kalonzo proved to be the kind of striker every team needs.
However, Dr Ruto couldn’t be stopped. In the end, with an assassin’s instinct, Dr Ruto stomped towards the ball, blasted an incisive, inch-perfect shot and scored in a dizzying first-time finish.
Mr Odinga complained of a foul — that the election had been rigged — and he went to the Supreme Court.
From the Court, Kenya witnessed epic, nerve-wracking arguments and relentless drama. In the end, the Court ruled that there was no foul. Dr Ruto was sworn in as President of Kenya.
Redemption song
What options does Mr Odinga have? Though he is a master of comebacks, if he chooses to exit Kenya’s politics, he would only have seen the land of redemption song from a distance.
His whirling dream of the presidency would have been broken — ushering in the end of a legendary career.
The son of Jaramogi would then retire sadly but in peace, his ultimate plan for Kenya left unopened like an untouched Christmas gift.
And then, for Kenya, the strongest voice that has ever risen for democracy would have been hushed.
And we would never know what could have been. However, there is always the haunting image of the man — handkerchief in hand — his eyes tearing due to the torture he endured as he fought for a more democratic space.
His aborted presidency will somehow haunt us as a lost ideal — a romantic quest — made even more idealistic by its elusiveness.
He seems like a man who means well; one with a schoolboy’s romantic love for his country.
His story with Kenya is about love — and, being about love, heartbreak. His latest audacious but ultimately doomed attempt for the presidency — so close, yet so far — has inspired a fresh round of tears from his supporters.
It must be a poignant personal loss to him.
