Baba, while you are away: Kenyan politics remains plural in form, authoritarian in soul and elections wars of conquest
Like many of his generation, Raila had inherited a political philosophy that viewed power as the precondition for justice. In his book, Not Yet Uhuru, Raila’s father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, relates how – during a stand-off between the two main African political parties at the 1962 Lancaster House negotiations over Kenya’s independence constitution – Jomo Kenyatta argued for compromise: “We had to reach a settlement. If we failed, government would be snatched from our hands. If we brought no government back with us, the people would regard it as an arch failure”.
