Building Better Boards A Blueprint for Effective Governance

Mudavadi’s memoir, Soaring Above the Storms of Passion, paints Odinga as a man under pressure who was willing to play tricks on both friend and foe to overcome the difficult situation before him. Some of Mudavadi’s claims have also corroborated what had already been written by exiled Kenyan activist Miguna Miguna who was part of Odinga’s team in the aftermath of August General Election. For instance, Mudavadi writes of the plan to have a parallel swearing in ceremony for Odinga. The plan received a lot of opposition from the international community and the ANC Party Leader says one Western country went as far as to cancel Odinga’s visa and that of many of his allies. Mudavadi was in the team of those who believed the Opposition chief should not have been sworn in but Odinga was also under a lot of pressure from the swearing in diehards who included Miguna Miguna, James Orengo, Jimmy Wanjigi, Raila Junior, among others. As the pressure mounted, Mudavadi, in consultation with Raila and the technical team decided to announce the postponement of the swearing in ceremony that had been expected to take place on December 12th 2018. Just before Mudavadi could make the announcement during a press conference at Okoa Kenya office, Raila became untraceable. Unknown to Mudavadi, the Opposition chief was holed up in Jimmy Wanjigi’s house in Muthaiga where the Okoa Kenya TV had planned to film a swearing in ceremony which would then be distributed on the internet. The team in Wanjigi’s house did not know that Raila had already directed the swearing in ceremony to be postponed, and kept asking Mudavadi why he was taking too long to make the announcement. "I learnt from people present that Raila seemed to have been very shocked to watch us on TV calling off the swearing in. He is reported to have said, "Oh they are calling it off?” At this point the swearing in at Muthaiga was called off. Before we left for the Okoa Kenya offices, he had called me to ask why we were taking long to make the announcement,” Mudavadi writes in his new book.