Raila Responds to 11 Foreign Envoys Who Asked Him to Recognize Uhuru as President

National Super Alliance (Nasa) leader Raila Odinga has angrily reacted to 11 envoys who, in a statement called on him to first recognize Uhuru Kenyatta as President as starting point for dialogue to end political impasse in the country.

In a joint statement, the 11 termed as unconstitutional the January 30th swearing in of Odinga as people's president, even as they criticized some actions taken by the Jubilee administration following the oath.

“A father of multi-party democracy has made unsubstantiated claims about elections and unilaterally sworn himself as “President”, in deliberate disregard of the Constitution for which he so proudly fought,” read part of the statement.

They went on: “The Opposition must accept the decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the election of October 26. Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are the legitimate President and Deputy President of Kenya. The Opposition needs to accept this as the basis for the dialogue that it and many Kenyans want. Stoking and threatening violence are not acceptable, nor are extra-Constitutional measures to seize power.”

However, addressing supporters on Sunday afternoon when he visited victims of Kijiji Village inferno in Lang'ata where fire brought down the entire slum two weeks ago, a seemingly aggrieved Odinga told the diplomats to keep off from Kenyan affairs, stating that Kenya is an independent country.

"We want to tell them that Kenya is an independent country and they can only be observers... we know their positions," he said.

"They can not come out here and tell us about democracy... we do not need advice from Godec and British High commissioner."

"...we are independent and we will deal with our matters as Kenyans... Maneno wanaosema ni tupu yote. Wanataka tuiingie kwa mitego (What they are saying is baseless, they want us to enter into traps)," he said.

While accusing them of attempting to treat Kenya as their colony, Odinga remarked,"Those envoys are hypocrites, stop interfering with our business in a colonial way, we will not accept to be colonised again".

The opposition chief maintained that Nasa will not recognise Uhuru, who lacks legitimacy, as President.

Robert Godec (US), Nic Hailey (UK), Jutta Frasch (Germany), Alison Chartres (Australia), Sara Hradecky of Canada, Mette Knudsen (Denmark), Anna Jardfelt (Sweden), Victor Conrad Rønneberg (Norway), Frans Makken (Netherlands), Tarja Fernández (Finland) and Kim Ramoneda (France) are the 11 ambassadors who signed the joint statement.