20100806
Nation

Relaxed and jovial, Mr Odinga used the period before the formal interview to talk candidly about the period leading up to the head operation that sidelined him from the campaign trail.

He described how he had earlier ignored what he thought was a minor bump on the head. He hit his head on a car door and later when headaches became persistent, he saw a doctor who initially diagnosed malaria.

When the malaria medication failed to halt the headaches, a second opinion suggested a sinus problem. Still the treatment did not work and he begun relying on a regular dose of panadol, an off-the counter pain-killer.

Finally the doctor, an Ear- Nose-and-Throat (ENT) specialist, ordered a scan, which revealed that there was no sinus problem, but a 'shadow' higher up in the head. That was when they called in a neurosurgeon who conducted a fresh series of tests that revealed acute subdural hematoma, bleeding around the brain that if left unattended can be very serious.

Immediate surgery was called for, with Mr Odinga recalling that the doctors expressed surprise he was still on his feet after the long period in which the problem was unattended. Blood clots had developed leading to pressure on the brain.

"It was like releasing the valve on a pressure cooker", Mr Odinga recalls of the surgery that involves drilling hole in the skill to release the pressure, and another one to drain the fluid-build up.

He has since been going for a scan every week and says the doctors report excellent progress.

The interview itself focused on the post-referendum scenario. Excerpts:

During the campaigns both you and the President committed yourselves to addressing the contentious issues raised by the 'No' team after the new Constitution won the day. Have you now given thought to the mechanism under which those issues can be revisited?

We will be discussing. But as you know we now have a new Constitution, and that Constitution outlines clearly how such issues can be raised and how it can be amended. We hope that the people who want amendments know that.

We agreed that we cooperate and that position has not changed. But as you know, when we went to parliament there were so many amendments proposed by MPs that nothing could move.

If you want to go down memory lane to 2005, there were just three contentious issues, the legislature, the executive and devolution.

Land was not an issue. Kadhi's court was not an issue. Abortion was not an issue. After we had agreed on the key things new contentious issues were raised. We are agreed to talks, but how can we be sure that new contentious issues will not be created? Nevertheless, we are willing to listen and resolve issues under the context of the new Constitution.

Whether contentious issues are new or old they are still issues that came to the fore. Have you thought through specifically which of those issues were not genuine, and those worth consideration and the best way they can be resolved to the satisfaction of both sides?

For instance Kadhi courts were a non issue. If you remove it the Muslims will be not be happy. There is really no compromise on the issue of the Kadhi courts, they have always been there under the Constitution and never hurt anybody. In any way, compromise on the issue had been reached in 2005 at Bomas of Kenya with the churches, with the very same church leaders who raised objections later.

Abortion?

You know this is an issue that did not come from the Committee of Experts. Abortion was introduced in Naivasha by the Church leaders.

They introduced it because they wanted it stated that life begins at conception and that abortion in not permitted, period. But then medical practitioners pointed out that if it was left that way, as professionals they would have a problem. They risked being charged with murder if in an emergency they terminated a pregnancy to save the life of the mother.

That's why other qualification had to be introduced, allowing the procedure if the life or health of the mother was in danger. Then there is also the Penal Code, and that is what informed the Committee of Experts decision to add the proviso 'permitted by any other law'.

Existing law?

Law which is already there. We were not drawing a new Constitution in a vacuum, and agreement had not been reached to repeal the existing laws. Now that we have a new Constitution we can look at some of those issues by considering the existing laws and deciding whether they need to be changed. In any case, any laws that are conflict with the Constitution will be rendered null and void.

The one issue that really worried the Rift Valley politicians was land. Do you see any room for engaging them on that?

You know this land issue was raised generally to instill fear in the peasants that their land was going to be taken away. If you look at the way they started it, it was full of distortions and misinformation that really had no basis.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the government was going to take over private land from individuals. It was mostly about protecting public land and about Parliament enacting new land laws. We have various categories of land: private, public and communal land, and all must be protected.

For private land it was generally about rationalising leasehold status so that you don't have 999 year leases for some and 99 year leases for others. But note that the proposed law has not been enacted by Parliament, so these people were objecting to something that did not exist.

It would have been better to wait and then debate the land law when it comes up. The process of introducing legislation all the way from Cabinet memo to circulation of a draft Bill by the A-G and eventual tabling of the Bill in Parliament all gives the public the opportunity to express their views.

Why would somebody pre-suppose that Parliament is going to pass a law that is anti-people? That was just a way of hyping up the people against the proposed constitution. I don't see any material substance in their objections on the land chapter.

Land was discussed extensively at Bomas, and at the end all agreed. The delegates were from all over Kenya and Rift Valley was strongly represented. It was not the substance but the politics that informed these late objections.

All the same we can see from the voting patterns a certain mood in a section of the Rift Valley, may be even anger and resentment. Does that worry you against the recent history of land and ethnic violence in that part of the country?

I think this new Constitution gives us the best platform to confront this issue of land that has been at the centre of conflicts in the Rift Valley. There are some fears that are real, others that are unfounded.

Take the issue of the Mau Forest. It was used to poison the minds of the people in the Rift Valley ... it was politics to try to put a wedge between me and the people, that I was trying to evict the people that have settled in the Mau without due regard to their rights and comforts.

But you see what we are trying to do in the Mau is in the interests of the people themselves, the people in the region and in the country generally.

Unless the issue of Mau is resolved it will be a big danger to the community. We were doing it in a very systematic and humane way, but politics intervened to incite the people. That has something to do with the way the people voted not just in South Rift, but also in other parts of the Rift Valley. To some extent we can say that they succeeded in mobilisng their people against the new Constitution.

That obviously has an impact on ODM losing a key constituency. Do you see William Ruto remaining in the Cabinet and in ODM?

We said we want to move forward in this country, we don't want to live in the past. We want to talk about what's good for the people of Kenya; we don't need to dwell on individuals. William Ruto has got his own conscience and can make up his own mind on whether he wants to come together with the people of Kenya or whether he wants to move in his own direction.