Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa and Alego Usonga MP Samuel Atandi nearly traded blows after a disagreement in relation to what the CS has said against ODM Party leader Raila Odinga.
The exchange was at Kisumu International Airport where the two were to board a plan from Kisumu to Nairobi. Echesa claimed that:
“Raila Odinga stop mentioning my name. I am not your equal. The president was not stupid to appoint me in the Cabinet. He would have picked a professor but he settled on me, the son of a poor man. he said.
“But now Raila Odinga is going round holding meetings with Western leaders, telling them that President Kenyatta wants Rashid Echesa out of Cabinet because he supports Ruto. Please Raila give me a break. I am not your equal,” a tough-talking Echesa said.
“We have one government led by the president and the deputy president and those are the only people I will pledge loyalty to. But not to you Raila Odinga. I will never call you Baba. My father died a poor man I even struggled to bury him.”
“If I am ejected from Cabinet. I am ready to come back home. This is where I belong. But I want to tell Raila Odinga that with or without that Cabinet position, the Luhya community is fed up with him. Leave us alone, If Raila Odinga has become the appointing authority in this country, I dare him to sack me.”
Responding to Echesa claims ODM communications head Philip Etale said:
“It is stupid to imagine that Raila Odinga is the appointing authority. Infact, he has no business thinking about some people who are inconsequential. Let them make NOISE. The journey to unite Kenya is unstoppable.”
Raila was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Langata in 1992, serving as Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002 and as Minister of Roads, Public Works, and Housing from 2003 to 2005. He was the main opposition candidate in the 2007 presidential election, running against incumbent Mwai Kibaki. Odinga was appointed Prime Minister in April 2008 in a power-sharing deal with Mwai Kibaki, serving as Supervisor and Coordinator of a national unity coalition government In the subsequent presidential election 5 years later he placed second against Uhuru Kenyatta, garnering 5,340,546 votes, which represented 43.28% of the total votes cast.
He made another run for the presidency in August 2017 against Uhuru Kenyatta and lost after the chairman of the electoral body declared Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner with 54% of the votes cast to Raila’s 43%.
This outcome was later annulled by the Supreme Court following findings that the election was marred by “illegalities and irregularities.” A subsequent fresh election ordered by the Court was however won by Uhuru Kenyatta when Raila declined to participate citing inadequate reforms to enable a fair process in the repeat poll.
Son of the first Vice President of Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, draws a large chunk of his support base from most regions in Kenya, most notably the Coastal Region and his native former Nyanza province. Raila is commonly known as “Baba”, due to coincidence: he was an MP at the same time as his father between 1992 and 1994. Other nicknames that have been associated with the premier are such as “Nyundo” which is hammer in kiswahili, “Tinga” which means tractor in Kiswahili a symbol of his National Development Party, NDP, “Agwambo” meaning a man who is unpredictable and ‘BABA’ which means the political father.
Raila Odinga first ran as a presidential contender in the 1997 elections, coming third after President Daniel arap Moi of KANU and Mwai Kibaki of the Democratic Party. He contested for President again in the December 2007 elections on an Orange Democratic Movement(ODM) ticket.
Raila Odinga was born at the Anglican Church Missionary Society Hospital, in Maseno, Kisumu District, Nyanza Province on 7 January 1945 to Mary Ajuma Odinga and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. His father served as the first Vice President of Kenya under President Jomo Kenyatta. He went to Kisumu Union Primary School, Maranda Primary and Maranda School where he dropped out in 1962. He spent the next two years at the Herder Institut, a part of the philological faculty at the University of Leipzig in East Germany.
He received a scholarship that in 1965 sent him to the Technical School, Magdeburg (now a part of Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg) in the GDR. It in 1970, he graduated with an Msc (Masters of Science). While studying in East Berlin during the Cold War, as a Kenyan he was able to visit West Berlin through the Checkpoint Charlie. When visiting West Berlin, he used to smuggle goods not available in East Berlin and bring them to his friends in East Berlin.
He returned to Kenya in 1970. In 1971 he established the Standard Processing Equipment Construction & Erection Ltd (later renamed East African Spectre), a company manufacturing liquid petroleum gas cylinders. In 1974, he was appointed group standards manager of the Kenya Bureau of Standards. In 1978 he was promoted to its Deputy Director, a post he held until his 1982 detention