“They had never seen Raila cry before. We looked at each other, unable to move.”
“Eeeeh…eehhhh..eiiii…Please save me from Kibaki! Eeeeeh..eiiiii…Please don’t let me go back to that man…I don’t want to go back to Kibaki! Eeeeh…eiii…Please save me from Kibaki!” Raila broke down and cried, torrents of tears flowing freely down his cheeks.
He was shaking uncontrollably. It was about 3:30pm on April 6, 2008. Everyone in the room was stunned.
They had never seen Raila cry before. We looked at each other, unable to move. No one was prepared for this heart-wrenching scene. I guess we had assumed that Raila was ‘superhuman’.
He had a larger-than-life image in the consciousness of Kenyans…But there he was, someone we all held in awe, wailing uncontrollably in front of everyone…Raila had just returned from a face-to-face meeting with Kibaki over the formation of the grand coalition government following the signing of the National Accord and reconciliation agreement on February 28 2008.
By then he had attended various meetings and most had ended in stalemate or Raila’s capitulation. Raila’s debriefs…had become a routine in itself, with Raila repeating, “Kibaki can’t accept this” or “Kibaki is insisting on that” Raila was not only crying he was sweating profusely.
