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Stephen Pollard

ByStephen Pollard, Stephen Pollard

Opinion

Another angle on Kenya

January 3, 2008 24:00
1 min read

There's an interesting angle on what's happening in Kenya here - an angle I haven't seen reported properly so far:Odinga has managed to present himself as standing against Kikuyu domination not only for the Luo but in some cases for other tribes as well, and he has also made appeals to the single-minded Muslim minority. Whether that Muslim minority has been especially ferocious in its attacks is unknown to me. What is known to me is that this aspect of Odinga's intent, and possibly of the mob violence against the Kikuyu that Odinga has done nothing to curb and everything to encourage, has not been mentioned in any of the Western accounts that I have seen.The site also points to an article from a pre-election issue of the African newspaper Christian Post, which is fascinating:Raila Odinga, the current frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election in Kenya, has promised to implement strict Islamic Sharia law if he receives the Muslim vote in the predominantly Christian country and is elected president.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) – signed on Aug. 29 by Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Leaders Forum (Namlef), and Odinga, presidential candidate from the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) – was made public on Nov. 27.

According to International Christian Concern (ICC), however, there are in fact two versions of the MOU. The persecution watchdog group claims that Abdi and Odinga signed a private MOU which is very different from the one presented to the public.