KAKAMEGA COUNTY. Bukhungu stadium in Kakamega town recorded a one of a kind event after four principals of the National Super Alliance (NASA) led by its presidential flag-bearer and his running-mate launched their official national campaign in their bid to occupy the biggest office in the land held at the State House after the August 8th polls if given the mandate by Kenyans.
“Today we are happy to start our journey to state house from here at Bukhungu stadium and we want to tell Kenyans that the journey to send the Jubilee government home has just started now,” said Raila.
Led by Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetangula, the four principals exuded confidence to emerge victorious in the general election as they poked holes in the UhuRuto administration which they said has led Kenyans down by not implementing its pledges and promises that they made to Kenyans in the run to the 2013 polls that saw their team be declared winners by the Supreme Court after Raila petitioned the results as announced by then IEBC chair Isaack Hassan.
Raila pointed out that the UhuRuto government gave many pledges to Kenyans that have not been implemented including laptops to primary school kids, the building of roads, improvement of the economy among many other promises that he said Kenyans should not give them any other chance to be in office any longer than August 8th, 2017.
“Jubilee made very many promises to Kenyans that have never been implemented up to now with less than 90 days to go because they promised that in 100 days of their administration primary school children will have laptops but where are they, they promised to build 10,000 kilometers of roads where are they?, they promised to reduce the cost of living for Kenyans but nothing so far,” the ODM leader said.
Blueprint for Western
The NASA team unveiled a blueprint for Western region known as Western Region Investment Plan (WERIP) which they told the huge crowd that it has all the plans and strategies as to how the NASA government intends to transform Western Kenya after taking power from Jubilee in August if they are voted by Kenyans into office.
They said the blueprint will be available for Kenyans especially from Western to read and interrogate it to see what their government has in store for them if they are elected.
He insisted that the NASA team only gives promises which they believe are practical and implemented, citing the 2002 pre-election pledge to have free primary education where the NARC government led by retired President Mwai Kibaki implemented the promise immediately after ascending to power in January 2003. He noted that the NASA team promises to implement free secondary education from September this year if they win this year’s elections in August.
“Our promises cannot be like those of Jubilee because when we make a promise we are sure that it is practical and can be implemented immediately, for instance, we have said that we are going to implement free secondary education and we see they are also copying the same but ours will be implemented in third term this year where all students in secondary schools will not pay fees, we can’t wait for next year,” he added.
Raila mentioned five main issues which he said should be used as a yardstick to send the Jubilee administration home come August.
Among them, he mentioned corruption, insecurity, the high cost of living, lack of employment opportunities for the youths, tribalism and lack of respect to devolution among others that he said have rocked the UhuRuto government.
To vote in numbers and guard the votes
Raila and his team urged Kenyans especially in Western region to come out in large numbers to vote in the August polls and also urged them to make committees at every polling station that shall be vigilant to guard the votes against any kind of stealing or rigging.
He pointed out that the former Western Province has over 1.9 million voters who are registered to vote in this year’s general elections and therefore they should maximise the numbers in favour of the NASA coalition to emerge victorious and form the next government.
They exuded confidence that their team will emerge victorious in August with over two million votes against Jubilee.
“We have weighed our strengths in all our strongholds and seen that we outweigh Jubilee on the weighing scale and we are now sure and confident that we are ten million strong of the votes in the country hence we expect an early win in August,” said Raila.
On his part Raila’s running mate Kalonzo Musyoka said that NASA will beat Jubilee by over two million votes lauding the recent opinion polls that showed Raila was trailing Uhuru at 42 per cent against Uhuru’s 47 per cent saying that it was a great improvement recorded as Raila closes the gap but revealed that according to their latest assessment as NASA, their team is now at 55 percent and is headed for victory.
Raila urged youths and other well-wishers to come out in large numbers during the voting day and ensure that each and every registered voter has his vote cast including the sick and elderly whom they said they will provide all possible means to ensure that everybody votes.
Mombasa governor Ali Hassan Joho said that he will avail ambulances across the county to ensure that even the sick are ferried from hospitals to polling stations to vote and be taken back on that day of voting.
He further noted NASA are very much aware of the tricks that Jubilee are planning to use to rig the elections and therefore they will not allow such a move to happen.
“We are aware that they are planning to withhold the results of the votes from their strongholds to wait until our votes from our strongholds are counted and announced so that they know the figures and determine how many do they add on theirs for them to beat us but I want to tell them that we are also not going to release our votes from our strongholds but we will also wait until we know theirs before we release ours,” said Joho who was welcomed with cheers from the crowd until Raila who had just started his speech had to wait until Joho settles down before the crowd could continue listening to him.
Other principals Moses Wetangula of Ford Kenya and Musalia Mudavadi of Amani National Congress – ANC used the launch to explain to the crowd that was believed to be composed of people from the larger Luhya community as to why they did not pursue their presidential ambitions but instead opted to support ODM’s Raila Odinga.
“Everybody here knows that I wanted to become president of this country but when I sat down and thought about it more critically I discovered that if I go it alone, my votes alone won’t count hence we had to come together and we all agreed that we support our elder brother Raila Odinga this time to go for the top seat,” said Mudavadi.
“Today as we are here at Bukhungu stadium you all remember that Weta was here at the Muliro Gardens launching my bid to go for presidency, Mudavadi was here and he also launched the same bid but when we sat with our colleagues we realized that Kenya is bigger than our individual interests hence we decided that Raila Amolo Odinga shall be mandated to fly our flag as presidential candidate,” said Wetangula.
He added that by doing so they did not go wrong bearing in mind that any of them whether Mudavadi, Wetangula himself, Raila or Kalonzo could not make it to win the presidency if they vied alone.
Other leaders present included Senators led by hosting Senator Dr. Boni Khalwale, governors led by area governor Wycliffe Oparanya. They pledged to mobilize voters across the region to rally behind the Raila-Kalonzo presidency in the general elections.
“My fellow Luhyas, I want to tell you here today that when you cast your vote for Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, you are voting for ANC, Ford Kenya, ODM, Wiper and Chama Cha Mashinani because this time round NASA has united us and painted Western in five colours,” said Khalwale.
However, he cautioned the principals against meddling in the local contests in different seats starting from the gubernatorial seats down to the MCA urging them to keep off and let the candidates battle among themselves to woo voters to their side as he exuded confidence to beat Governor Oparanya in the contest for the gubernatorial seat in Kakamega county.
The two leaders who are all from the NASA umbrella under ODM and Ford Kenya affiliate parties have locked horns in the contest for the coveted governor’s seat that is held by Oparanya.
Other leaders at the function included governors Ali Hassan Joho of Mombasa, Moses Akaranga of Vihiga, Sospeter Ojaamong of Busia, Kivutha Kibwana of Makueni, Okoth Obado of Migori, Cornel Rasanga of Siaya and Cyprian Awiti of Homabay.
Senators included James Orengo of Siaya, Amos Wako of Busia and George Khaniri of Vihiga together with Moses Kajwang, Daisy Kanainza and Elizabeth Ongoro.
MPs present included Sakwa Bunyasi, Millie Odhiambo, Gladys Wanga, Dr. Chris Wamalwa, Florence Mutua, Alfred Agoi, Yusuf Chanzu, Dr. Wilbur Otichilo, Oburu Odinga, John MBadi, Peter Kaluma and Ayub Savula among others together with tens of aspirants for different seats in different parts of the country including Nairobi woman representative candidate for ODM Esther Passaris among others.