The handshake between the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the President Uhuru Kenyatta has revealed many things apart from healing the nation.
The handshake has turned out to be the greatest ever milestone made in achieving of the national unity and cohesion.
In a close interview with one of the leading newspapers Mr Raila Odinga revealed how he is vital in running of various ministries. Many people are rushing to him to get advise on how to go about important issues of national importance.
While downplaying this development, Mr Odinga said: “I talk to different ministers. I have run a government and so I may know a thing or two that could be beneficial to them. Whenever there are security issues that are of concern nationally, they inform me. I also give my advice from time to time,” he said.
At the height of national outcry following the proposal by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich to increase Value Added Tax on petroleum products by up to 16 percent in September, a rare consultation was happening behind the scenes between President Kenyatta, who was in China, and Mr Odinga in Nairobi.
Mr Kenyatta, worried that the public anger would snowball into a national crisis, called Mr Odinga to pick his brain on how to assuage the rage.
“He (Mr Kenyatta) told me he was working it out with his team to see where to cut. That’s how a reduction in allocations to counties, Parliament and more austerity measures affecting foreign travel were arrived at.
“He had earlier been advised to reduce it to 10 percent but he told me he was keen to reduce it at least by half. And that’s what he did in the end,” Mr Odinga revealed.
It emerged in the interview that the consultation on VAT is not an isolated incident in the newfound relationship between the two, a far cry from the hard-tackle politics and name-calling that has characterised the relationship between the two.