ODM-UDA deal died the day Albert Ojwang was killed in police custody: Sifuna

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Secretary General Edwin Sifuna has sensationally declared the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the party and the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party null and void following the recent killing of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang while in police custody.

Speaking in an interview with Citizen TV on Tuesday night, Sifuna said the tragic incident marked the collapse of the agreement, which he insists had already shown signs of crumbling due to what he termed as bad faith from the Kenya Kwanza administration.

"On the day that Albert Ojwang dies in a police cell, to me this agreement is dead. Because it doesn’t matter what else you do, Albert will not be able to enjoy that,” Sifuna stated bluntly, adding that the spirit of the MoU was betrayed the moment lives continued to be lost despite supposed political détente.

The Nairobi Senator further disclosed that he had been opposed to the MoU from the onset, warning the ODM party against entering into any formal arrangement with UDA.

He claimed the Kenya Kwanza administration, led by President William Ruto, had no genuine interest in upholding the contents of the document.

“I am on record having advised the party against doing this MoU with UDA, and we still went ahead and entered that MoU, but the beauty is that we’re proven right every day. I warned that the problem with doing a formal MoU with UDA is that it didn’t matter what the MoU said, the people from UDA – the government and William Ruto – are not interested in the details of the MoU, and that is why he gets upset when I remind him what the MoU said,” he said.

“They wanted a document that they could then go and run a P.R campaign around and say we’re together…that is not what this document says, this document does not establish a coalition agreement between ODM and UDA, but that’s the impression they’ve been creating. I had warned that the P.R disaster that was going to come from this was going to be something that was going to be very difficult to manage.”

Sifuna revealed that during a recent ODM meeting, there was a proposal to form a team to review the implementation of the MoU.

He however noted that he declined to participate in it, insisting that the agreement no longer holds any legitimacy in his view.

“Recently, we had another meeting and there was a proposal to have a team to review the implementation of this MoU. I have asked respectfully that I be left out of that team because I have already declared this MoU dead,” he stated.

According to Sifuna, the original basis for entering into the MoU was two-fold: to preserve human life amidst rising tensions and to uphold the democratic state.

While he admits that Kenya's political stability seems to have been maintained for now, he decried the continued state-sponsored violence and killings that undermine the pact’s moral foundation.

“The reason that I declared this MoU dead is because the initial argument for entering this MoU was two-fold; first of all, it was for the sustenance of life – that we were losing people unnecessarily, that can we all agree that we need to stop killing our people,” stated the ODM SG.

“The second argument was the sustenance of the democratic state; so Ruto is getting his end of the bargain because the democratic state is being sustained at least until 2027, but our people are not getting there, they’re still being killed.”