Probe claims of plot to kill me, says Raila - VIDEO

In Summary

• On Mr Kenyatta’s recent directive empowering County Commissioners, Mr Odinga argued that the officers have no role and that the government should allow counties to manage their own affairs.

By B M J Muriithi
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By OUMA WANZALA
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Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has accused police of treating as trivial the claims of an assassination plot against him.

Commenting for the first time on the claims first made by his elder brother, Dr Oburu Oginga earlier this month, Mr Odinga asked the police to take the allegations seriously.

Dr Oginga had alleged that there was an East African Community conspiracy to eliminate him. Days after he made the claims, he presented himself to the CID headquarters to record a statement last week. However, the officers asked him to record the statement in Bondo, Siaya County.

On Monday, in a wide-ranging interview in the US, Mr Odinga said: “I have not had an opportunity to talk to my brother over the issue at length as he only talked about having credible information and I advised him to report to the police.

“I do not know the reason someone will want to kill me but the reason is best known to people who are planning it.”
He wondered why, even after volunteering to go to the CID, Dr Oginga was referred to the police in Bondo.

“It is strange that he was turned away. Where you give information does not matter as it is the responsibility of the police to investigate,” he said.
Mr Odinga regretted that a citizen of the standing of an MP could be turned away by police.

“May be they know the reason why,” said the Cord leader who has been in the US for over two months on a study programme and is scheduled to return on May 31.

“All of us will die one day. Like Shakespeare in Julius Ceasar said, death is a necessary evil. It will come when it will come and only cowards die many times before their death.”
He said that he had done what was right for the country and wished to see a united Kenya.

“As Nelson Mandela said this is an ideal which I would like to live to see realised but if I must pay the ultimate price, so be it,” he said.
Last week, Dr Oginga had claimed that senior leaders in the East African Community had hatched a plot to assassinate Mr Odinga.

However, State House dismissed the allegations as unfounded.
On regional integration, Mr Odinga said that he had a cordial relationship with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and his Rwandan counterpart, Mr Paul Kagame.

He said he believed in the dream of an EAC federation which, he said, was started by his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and the Tanzanian founding president Julius Nyerere.

“I have enjoyed good relations with Museveni and Kagame I have visited both of them and held discussions on various issues affecting EAC,” he said. He supported the standard gauge railway project which he described as the brainchild of the Grand Coalition government in which he was Prime Minister and Mr Mwai Kibaki the President.

“I was chairing a joint committee with the Ugandan PM. We agreed that each country moves on with the project and it is good that Presidents Museveni, Kiir and Kagame were in Nairobi to witness the signing of the deal with China,” he said.

Lamu project

However, he asked President Uhuru Kenyatta not to abandon the Lamu project saying it would open up the region for development.

On Anglo Leasing, he said that it was unfortunate that the scandal occurred when the Narc government had put in place mechanisms to fight corruption.
He said the scandal occurred in the Kibaki administration but had started under the Nyayo era.

“It is sad that this occurred when former minister David Mwiraria was the chair of an anti-corruption committee while John Githongo was the secretary of the committee,” he said.

Mr Odinga added that the deals happened under their feet.

However, he said that not all Anglo Leasing-related projects were fictitious and gave the example of the navy ship and Project Nexus, a border surveillance system based in Karen.
“It is mad to  refuse to pay for the delivered services,” he said.

On Mr Kenyatta’s recent directive empowering County Commissioners, Mr Odinga argued that the officers have no role and that the government should allow counties to manage their own affairs.

The National Government Coordination Act violates the Constitution, he said, adding that the provincial administration was meant to be restructured and not renamed.

“The national government should co-operate with county governments which are the representative of people on the ground,” he said.