Raila’s chief agent, Saitabao Ole Kanchory has recently launched a book where he explains in detail the intriguing story of how Raila lost to William Ruto in the 2022 Presidential Election.
Saitabao’s book, ‘Why BABA is not the 5th’, explains in detail the mistakes that cost Raila Odinga the presidential seat. The chief agent has revealed the behind-the-scenes chaos that happened on August 9 during the 2022 presidential election.
The book describes the coalition’s election command centre that then was under former Kenya president Uhuru Keyatta’s younger brother, Muhoho Kenyatta, as a tower of babel that showed a serious misunderstanding between the former Information Communication and Technology Cabinet Secretary, Joe Mucheru, and former Interior Principal Secretary, Karanja Kibicho.
We have also been informed of the lack of interest to vote and get involved with the Azimio la Umoja Coalition Party leader, Raila Odinga. Some of Kenyatta’s senior government officials were not interested in campaigning for Raila. Kanchory said that some former Cabinet Secretaries and other top government officials felt they would not make it to Raila’s inner circle ahead of other people who were already close to him. Others felt left out when he mentioned his running mate, Martha Karua.
Most officials in Raila’s team saw an opportunity to make money during the campaign period because they feared their candidate would not win the election.
“The fact that these top officials, some of whom were expected to deliver a Raila presidency, were not guaranteed a place in Raila’s government meant the campaigns and the ancillary operations, like the command center, offered the last chance to shore up their financial standing,” reads an excerpt from Saitabao Ole Kanchory’s book.
Raila’s chief agent gave an instance of when a visitor to one of the former Cabinet Secretary had to weave his way around stacks of cash in his office.
“The campaigns, therefore, gave them the much-needed opportunity to make money. A visitor to the office of one of the CSs and was shocked to see that the CS kept his otherwise-public office under lock and key. When the CS let him into the office, it soon became clear why. This obviously highly trusted guest had to walk on stacks of cash to get to the CS’s desk,” he claims in the book.
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The list of agents was also changed several times even on the exact morning of the elections. Some agents who had already been trained by the coalition were rejected by some top officials and they were replaced by agents who had not received training. An official who worked with Azimio’s secretariat said this in an interview:
“We had a good program before it backfired. We trained the agents and prepared them on how to handle the elections. We even made a down payment of Ksh 1,500 and were to pay them Ksh 5,000 each.”
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“But on the eve of the elections, one of the top officials, a close ally of Mr Odinga, messed up the plan. It was a scenario where you have trained people, let’s say 1,500, in a constituency, then he comes and asks, ‘How did you find these people?’” the source said.
