OKA technical team is in Naivasha for a retreat to look at issues to do with the nomination of the presidential candidate, why didn’t you send a team there?

There is a team, apparently there is a lot of misinformation. For your information, the chair of the technical team is actually my nominee. All this messaging that I did not send a team is in my view disinformation. There are two people from my team who are in Naivasha, the chairman Sammy Karanja and Godfrey Kanoti.

There are also reports that you snubbed an invitation to the State House function on Thursday?

The first thing we saw was to wake up to media reports that there is going to be a luncheon at State House. Some reports said it was an Azimio meeting. It is after that phone calls were coming to notify us of a meeting to be held there and clearly, we had already made our arrangements for the day, so in my view, you can see you wake up to media reports and then later you are getting calls on issues that are already in the media without having been consulted earlier in the context of such a meeting. The messaging came too late and the truth is I am focusing on our NDC.

In your book, Soaring Above the Storms of Passion, you are very elaborate about the 2002 elections and you said you made a very costly decision. You are also in a position where you are also about to make a decision on whether you are running as OKA or you are going to the ballot alone. Are you about to get it right or wrong this time?

I will make my statement on January 23rd at the NDC. ANC is focusing on three things, first, we shall be launching our manifesto as a party, so the people can know what would form the basis of our agenda when they give us a mandate. Two is for them to give permission to me and other party leaders to now enter and negotiate coalition agreements with other political organisations or entities.

The final one is that they will be giving their final approval that I am the presidential candidate for the ANC. These are very fundamental statements that they will be making on that day. After that, I can only say I will hit the road running in popularising my candidacy.

There has been a very strong invitation from the Deputy President for you to team up with him and there is a lot of speculation you could be heading in that direction. What is the correct position?

All I can say is that in the last few weeks, in particular, I have been more in the media for what I have not said rather than what I have said. The fact that we are drawing so much attention, to me, is a very positive development in the sense that there is now clear recognition that we are a significant player in this country and definitely we are attracting attention from our competitors.

That is important, the rest is I’m being declared or endorsed by ANC’s NDC as the presidential candidate and that is what I am.
Towards the end of last year, OKA principals and Raila had a number of meetings with the President in Mombasa. Do you speak with him often? And has he made any formal invitation to you to join Azimio?

My friendship with the President is one thing and I respect him as the President of the Republic. He has his political views, persuasions and I have mine. I respect his position whether I agree with it or not and I suppose he would do the same in my case as a democrat.

That position is clear as far as I’m concerned. He has not made any major pronouncement in my view on what he wants or what he would wish but we also live in the country called Kenya and we are observant so it would be ridiculous if we went around and say we cannot smell the coffee. We can smell the coffee. I think he has his mind set in a particular direction although he may not be sounding it out loudly.

On hate speech and inflammatory remarks. There are a number of cases being pursued by the DPP. As ANC leader, have you spoken about it with your team?

We are called Amani National Congress. Our anchor is peace. For your information, ANC is a name I adopted from the Amani coalition because I was involved in the peace process with Kofi Annan when we were brokering reconciliation following the bungled 2007/8 presidential election. It is on the basis that we founded the Amani coalition then we converted to ANC, the basis was stemming from a chaotic situation. We as ANC are very particular that we should not entertain any language or actions that can destroy the peace of this country. In our politics, we will never mention words that are designed to incite Kenyans.

There is this push by some ANC leaders for you to join Azimio and work with Raila. What are the fundamental differences between you and Raila?
We want to look forward to it. He has his political persuasion and I have mine. If we can get away from making people imagine that this is a personal difference, the better. I am going to lay out my blueprint on what I think the country needs or has been lacking so I can only say please hear me out on January 23 when we launch our manifesto. The content of our manifesto will be the basis for which you can see, what we stand for and what others stand for. There are some scenarios, which appear to be coming from Naivasha team which appear to pair candidates in OKA. All of them put Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka on top of the ticket.“Was that authentic? Don’t you think it was a mischievous piece of journalism on my part because frankly speaking, I had told my colleagues I will not be there (Naivasha) because I will be preparing for my NDC but our teams are there? So who is this who wants to leak a selective narrative to the media and make it look like it is a decision already made? It is outright mischief.
If it is mischief, then it should be coming from one of your colleagues in OKA?

It could be both from within or without. But I can tell you for free that there are some people who are extremely nervous about the position we are going to take during the NDC and the direction that the party will show this country. They are extremely nervous and they are trying to do anything within their means to try and divert attention from that NDC or to water down the anticipated impact of the NDC but I want to tell you, we shall remain focused, we shall continue planning and we shall have the NDC.

This is the shortcoming when the people reporting don’t demand authentication of a story. If you are to ask me, the journalist who ran with the story failed in their professional calling because we didn’t authenticate what they were reporting. They were talking about sources. We should forget that and move on.

You have been VP, minister, Deputy Prime Minister, from where you are seated, what is the political burden you bear, what do you want to do, what is it that nags you so much that you need to continue playing on?

I would like to see the country going in the right direction. Right now, it is the poverty that is on the rise in this country and the burden that is going to be on our shoulders for years to come. This is something we are serious about and we need to have a government with a very clear purpose to salvage this country.

People may be joking but we are soon going to be in a situation where we could have massive default on settling our obligations and we could have a very serious situation where sooner or later we will not be able to pay salaries for public officers, so this is not a joke and it needs people who will focus on stemming the haemorrhage and having the right political goodwill so we can move forward.