Raila confidante Sarah Elderkin has launched a savage attack on Miguna Miguna and defended his deportation by the Kenya government. Her article appears in the Siasa section of today’s Weekend Star.
Read: State justified to deport Miguna Miguna, says former aide to Raila
Elderkin, now staying in the UK, is one of Raila Odinga’s closest and most trusted associates. She was the ghost writer of his autobiography Flame of Freedom published in 2013. In her frequent columns for the Star and other newspapers over the last decade, she has stridently defended Raila and articulated his views on key issues.
“It is impossible that Elderkin would not have consulted Raila before writing this article about Miguna. It is difficult for Raila to comment publicly on Miguna’s deportation because he might lose support if he was too critical of Miguna. But Elderkin can speak out on his behalf,” said a political analyst yesterday.
Elderkin, the former editor of Weekly Review, damns Miguna and defends the government decision to deport him. Presumably Raila did not dissuade her from doing so. If so, Raila must have a very low opinion of Miguna.
“ In the matter of Miguna and his immigration status, Matiang’i is correct. You cannot allow entry into Kenya of a foreign citizen without the appropriate documents,” Elderkin argues.
Miguna took up Canadian citizenship in the 1990s when that entailed renouncing Kenyan citizenship. He got a new passport through former Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang after he returned to Kenya in 2007 but Elderkin accepts that it was under dubious circumstances.
“Miguna is completely in the wrong according to the law, as well as under international citizenship conventions,” she writes.
She points out that 3,000 former Kenya citizens have applied to regain their citizenship after the 2010 constitution permitted dual nationality.
“Miguna has failed to follow suit. So what makes him different? Only his inflated, distorted opinion of himself, which he feels puts him above the law,” Elderkin writes.
“In February, the government used its perfectly legal powers to deport a loud-mouthed Canadian citizen they considered a nuisance,” she comments.
“Miguna flew into Nairobi airport on March 26, well knowing what was ahead of him, and what he had planned. He knew that any Kenyan passport he had was issued illegally, likewise any Kenyan ID card,” she says.
“Miguna had his Canadian passport all along, as he later himself admitted. But producing it and going about things correctly would have been too easy and would not have brought him the attention he wanted,” she argues.
“Nothing about Miguna’s demeanour – charming or furious – is accidental. Everything with Miguna is an act. And he will do whatever it takes to get what he wants,” she claims.
Miguna was a student activist during the Moi regime but went into exile in Canada in 1988. He returned to in 2007 to work with ODM. He was attached to the Prime Minister’s office in the coalition government but was suspend in 2010 following accusations of gross misconduct. He declined his reinstatement in December because the letter was not personally signed by Raila Odinga.
He then launched virulent attacks on Raila in print and the electronic media culminating in his book Peeling Back the Mask published in 2012.
In 2013 he endorsed Uhuru Kenyatta as a candidate for president.
In 2017 he stood for Nairobi government but got less than one percent of the vote.
He then joined the Nasa campaign for fresh elections and declared himself General of the National Resistance Movement.
He was on the podium in Uhuru Park on January 30 when Raila was sworn in as Peoples President.
That apparently prompted his deportation by government on February 6.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment