Whether he ascends to Kenya’s presidency on August 9 or not, at 55, deputy president William Samoei Ruto has done the impossible. This is partly courtesy of safeguards entrenched in the country’s 2010 Constitution – which prevented President Uhuru Kenyatta from sacking Ruto or forcing him to resign – and partly thanks to Ruto’s own grit, raw ambition and indefatigability, powered by a corresponding financial war chest which has sustained Ruto’s five year State House bid.
To Odinga’s supporters, who knew him by various epithets; jakom (chairman), agwambo (mystery man), among others, skeptics could say whatever they wished to say about their man, but the verdict was out. There was only one enigma in Kenyan politics. His name was Raila Odinga.
