Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba has told ODM leader Raila Odinga to take charge, claiming the party had been taken hostage by hooligans.
The party has been rocked by leadership wrangles since its botched elections in February this year.
“I really want to condemn this culture of hooliganism; this culture of intolerance; this culture of rumour mongering that has made ODM an institution that does not run on any rules. I am pleading with the party leader to take charge. I want to warn him that if he doesn’t, there are elements who want to cannibalise the party,” he said in a telephone interview.
Mr Namwamba was speaking at Mombasa’s Serena Hotel in the company of embattled party executive director Magerer Lang’at, sacked parliamentary whip Gideon Mung’aro, and Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua of the Wiper Democratic Party.
ODM has been rocked by a series of wrangles over its leadership with the latest being the declaration on Wednesday by one official, Mr Wafula Buke, that he had deposed Mr Lang’at.
On Thursday, secretary-general Anyang’ Nyong’o called all ODM directors to his Senate office at KICC in Nairobi, where Mr Buke was again warned against taking actions which portrayed the party in bad light.
“We were told the person who will be in charge in the interim will be announced by the party leader himself,” one of the directors at the meeting said on condition of anonymity.
He said Mr Joshua Kawino, the finance director, had been appointed as the interim executive director until a disciplinary team concludes investigations on Mr Lang’at.
Source-nation.co.ke
Ababu Namwamba tells Raila ODM hijacked by hired goons
