New revelations now indicate that Opposition leader Raila Odinga has been privately working on an elaborate campaign strategy to ensure he trounces President Uhuru Kenyatta in the upcoming 2017 polls.
Odinga’s bid for the 2017 presidency is reportedly being handled by a 14-member team comprising individuals from the business, political and the civil society sectors. His traditional advisers have apparently been excluded from the campaign team operating in a discreet manner.
The team, which has been up and running holding regular meetings within the city, is reportedly working on a Sh15 Billion budget for a successful campaign that will see Odinga clinch the country’s top job.
Officials close to the former prime minister disclosed that Odinga will not spare financial and intellectual resources in his bid to decisively win the polls in the first round of voting.
Sources privy to the plan revealed to the Daily Nation that Odinga’s handlers are investing millions of shillings on a result tallying and relaying system expected to arrive from a European country early next year.
The system will run parallel to that of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and will relay results real-time from all corners of the country.
IT experts will reportedly be flown in from South Africa to man the "state-of-the-art" equipment, which will be placed in a three-storey building in Nairobi until the results are announced.
It is believed that the 14-member committee is behind Odinga’s renewed onslaught on the Jubilee government on reports of corruption in high places.
The committee is apparently complemented by three consultants who fly in regularly from Germany to advise on strategy and preparation.
Meanwhile, ODM treasurer and Kitutu Masaba MP Timothy Bosire revealed that ODM’s campaign financing structure would expand once CORD agrees on the presidential lineup.
He noted that they have been mobilising resources both within and outside the country aware that they are facing an incumbent with all the state machinery at their disposal.
“ODM has broad goodwill across the country and even beyond our borders. We are getting offers of campaign vehicles, and others willing to fuel them and so we do not expect any challenge in terms of funds,” he said.
So far, the team has bought at least six off-road vehicles with the number expected to increase to 100 with at least two assigned to every county by early February when ODM is expected to conduct its primaries.
While Mr Odinga has access to four choppers, six more are expected by the time he becomes the coalition’s presidential candidate or in the event he chooses to go it alone.
Should Odinga be picked as the CORD candidate, this will be the fourth time he is taking a shot at the presidency.
