After winning 2002 presidential election, Mwai Kibaki summoned Raila Odinga to State House in a secretly guarded meeting and offered him the post of Vice President.
Raila played key role in making Kibaki president. While the opposition was divided on who should be their presidential flag bearer in 2002 election, Raila ended the impasse when he declared the famous words “Kibaki Tosha”.
Kibaki was also involved in a grisly road accident just three weeks to the general election and once again Raila moved mountains to protect him amid fear that Moi regime would do something nasty.
Dr. Dan Gikonyo who is a family doctor to the Kibakis narrated the key role Raila played in airlifting Kibaki to London after the accident.
Kibaki’s running-mate Michael Kijana Wamalwa was also hospitalized in London at the same hospital Kibaki was admitted, leaving Raila to take charge of the campaigns.
Former Vice President Moody Awori revealed how Kibaki decided to reward Raila for the role he played in making him president in his autobiography ‘Riding on a Tiger’.
Awori says immediately Kibaki was sworn in as Kenya’s third president, he summoned Raila to State House in a secretly guarded meeting and offered him the post of Vice President.
Awori reveals that Raila politely turned down the offer telling Kibaki that it would be a betrayal to Kijana Wamalwa if he accepted the offer.
“Immediately after the 2002 elections, Kibaki called Raila at State House in a secretly guarded meeting of two. Kibaki wanted to appoint Raila as Vice President instead of Wamalwa because he felt Raila had played a bigger role in delivering victory than Wamalwa. Shockingly Raila declined the offer arguing that it would not be good to shortchange Wamalwa,” wrote Moody Awori.
Kibaki ended up appointing Raila Minister for Roads, Public Works and Housing and he kept Wamalwa as his Vice President until his death on August 23rd 2003.
Moody Awori was appointed Vice President after Wamalwa’s death, a position he held until 9th January 2008 when the new government took charge.
