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Look around you and in mirror for answers on 2008 PEV, Raila tells Uhuru


Opposition leader Raila Odinga has has hit back at President Uhuru Kenyatta for linking him to the 2007/8 post election violence.

In his rebuttal, Mr Odinga accused the President of using the sensitive subject to whip up emotions in a bid to secure votes ahead of the August elections.

“We understand the desperation of the President for something to hang on to and re-energise his depressed 2013 voting bloc,” Odinga said in a terse statement to newsrooms.

During his tour of the Kisii region, President Kenyatta accused the ODM leader of having ignited the post-election violence in 2007-08.

Mr Odinga went on: “The President needs to look no further than the empire his family and associates assembled corruptly using public resources, if he is keen to understand why Kenya stagnated while the Republic of Korea moved forward. In the ill acquired wealth of the family and associates lies Kenya’s lost years.”

The face-off between President Kenyatta and the Cord leader is getting nastier with the elections barely four months away.

Mr Kenyatta defeated Mr Odinga by more than 800,000 votes in the last polls, although the latter has contested the results.

Read the full statement below:

CLAIMS BY PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA ON POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE:

I have learnt of claims by President Uhuru Kenyatta while visiting Kisii earlier today that I played a central role in the 2007/2008 post-election violence and that he is responsible for Kenya’s stagnation. We wish to state as follows:

1. We understand the desperation of the President for something to hang on to and reenergise his depressed 2013 voting bloc. We however advise the President to look around his entourage as he visits Kisii and also look into the mirror if he is interested in the truth on the 2007/2008 violence.

2. We remind the President that the Gusiiland he is visiting is littered with post-election violence victims who are yet to be compensated, including a widow who had only her husband’s skull to burry. We hope the President has had time to ask whether she has been at his rallies and if she believes his story.

3. The President needs to look no further than the empire his family and associates assembled corruptly using public resources, if he is keen to understand why Kenya stagnated while the Republic of Korea moved forward. In the ill-acquired wealth of the family and associates lies Kenya’s lost years.

4. The Gusii people need no lecture on who initiated the infrastructural transformation in their county. Neither do they need to be told who the high priest of corruption in the country is. They are only too aware.

HON RAILA ODINGA

ODM PARTY/ CORD COALITION LEADER

MARCH 22, 2017