President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga both start off from dynastic backgrounds.

One of them was spoon-fed in the right-wing corridors of comfort and oligarchy. The other is a product of persecution and prosecution.

When gauged in the lens of leadership and staying true to convictions in times of adversity, Raila is by far a superior leader.

What leadership has Uhuru displayed, absent the state machine?

As a scion of Kenya’s oligarchy, Uhuru knew no better way to do politics other than from the confines of the state monolith and hegemony.

Raila is a portrait of a battle-hardened political insurgent, who for decades has on behalf of the masses, borne the brunt of state intimidation and detention, right from the Odinga household, to build complex global networks to not only attain incredible business success but also cut himself a niche as the fulcrum of Kenya’s politics.

Uhuru’s over-reliance on State House patronage from two presidents — Moi and later Kibaki — for the attainment of his political ends smacks of a deficiency of self-initiative, and innovation that surely denies him the legacy of a politician with the self-confidence to create and then sustain a political formation in an adversarial environment.