November 26, 2024

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Why Raila Walks, Dances as if Limping

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While dancing opposition leader Raila Odinga seems to struggle moving his left leg. He walks with slight difficulty that makes him appear as if limping.

Truth is, his left knee has problems he got 46 years ago. A tackle in soccer field that left him badly injured he nearly became a cripple.

Sometime in 1974 Raila was training at a field along Thika road. With his team members in Gor Mahia they were readying for a derby with the Survey of Kenya team.

He was a Gor Mahia player since 1970. While they were exercising a player from Survey team jumped against Raila, kicked him in the left knee and sheared the front of his left shin with his shoe studs.

Raila (In blue shirt) dancing.

Raila was hospitalised and for several weeks he could not walk. He just crawled.

He says were it not for proper medical attention he got, he would be a handicapped man.

“At the hospital my kneecap had to be pushed back into position. For weeks I was barely able to walk and had to crawl around the house” he says in his book “The Flame of Freedom”.

He adds; “It was an agony and it was also the end of my football career. I sustained an injury whose after-effects would remain with me for the rest of my life”.

Days Raila was a footballer.

Today, besides walking with difficulty Raila cannot squat. While he was arrested and tortoured by KANU government in 1980s, interrogators beat him for failing to squat unknown to them the knee injury could not allow him do that.