Nairobi Star (Nairobi)
Caroline Mango And Andrew Teyie
20 November 2008
Nairobi — Prime Minister Raila Odinga revived the ODM Pentagon of six top leaders at a make -or-break meeting at his Karen house on Tuesday night, the Nairobi Star has established.
The Prime Minister invited the members for dinner at his house on short notice on Tuesday afternoon where he reportedly told them that them that he was lonely at the top.
"I miss this team. This team brought me to where I am and I thoroughly miss the advice of the team members," Raila told them.
At the end of the dinner they resolved that the Pentagon will now have a bigger say on decisions affecting the ODM, and that the Prime Minister will consult them more, according to an official in the Prime Minister's office.
"The PM said he would give the team more space to run the affairs of ODM and speak for the party," said another source who attended the meeting.
All Pentagon members attended the crucial dinner in Karen.
The members are Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi, Agriculture minister William Ruto, Tourism minister Najib Balala, Water minister Charity Ngilu, Cooperatives minister Joe Nyagah and Industrialisation minister and ODM chairman Henry Kosgey. The meeting which lasted three hours was preceded by a dinner prepared by Raila's wife, Ida.
The Pentagon was formally disbanded on September 8 this year at the end of a meeting of the six members and party MPs in Naivasha.
The positions of party leader and deputy party leader were created in its place.
Several party MPs at the time insisted that the two new positions should be open for competition. The positions of ODM Chairman, Secretary General and Treasurer as well as their deputies were retained.
"The notice was very short. Raila pleaded for the unity of the party and said how he misses the members. He told them how the team got him the Prime Minister's position," stated a source at the meeting.
Raila noted that he wants to revive the togetherness that existed before they joined the coalition government.
Another source said that Pentagon members were surprised when they each got a personal call on Tuesday from Raila. Some Pentagon members have recently complained that the PM has been ignoring them and that they had not been able to hold discussions as they did before joining the coalition. The Pentagon has not met for the last five months.
"Some of them were shocked when he called them mid morning. This is because he personally spoke to them instead of through an aide as has been the case," said the source.
The sources described the mood of the meeting as "reconciliatory" as Raila seemed to have ceded ground. The source noted that they were expecting him to talk about Waki but he and they never raised the matter.
"They were ready and waiting for him to open talks on Waki. They were ready to tell him off. He was clever and avoided it," stated a source.
The source said that the mood was for building bridges.
"He told the members that he cannot reach the destination ( i.e. the presidency) without them. He told members that he wanted to bond," stated the source.
The dinner meeting came ahead of today's planned Parliamentary Group meeting to deliberate on the decision by the National Executive Committee to overrule its rejection of the Waki Report on post-election election violence.
The NEC last week backtracked on the Parliamentary Group's rejection of the Waki report saying it cast the party in bad light.
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