The ODM party has lashed out at ANC party leader Musalia Mudavadi’s after he said that the handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was as a result of blackmail. Speaking to Kenyans in diaspora in the US, Mudavadi said leaders in the opposition were threatened with Visa cancellations by some Western nations, “The secret is that slowly Visas were being cancelled, and when Visas of people are cancelled they don’t cancel yours alone, they cancel yours, your wife’s, your children’s and your relatives….” said the ANC party leader.
He said when opposition leaders realized they had made a mistake, they were told by the aforementioned Western powers that be, that the only way to salvage the situation was through a handshake, “So what gave birth to the handshake, in my view, was actually more of personal survival rather than patriotism,” he said.
However, on Thursday, ODM leaders hit out at Mudavadi, with party secretary general Edwin Sifuna saying Musalia’s decision to miss the much publicized swearing in of Raila Odinga ruled him out of any future deals. “Raila and ODM decided on that day to chart a new course without our so called coalition partners,” he said. He urged Musalia to desist from “Parading his ignorance in far away lands.”
On his part, Godfrey Osotsi said Mudavadi is a beneficiary of the handshake, citing that when Huduma Namba was being launched, Musalia was among the people who were facilitated to go and launch the exercise.