Beleaguered Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Executive Director Magerer Langat has quit the party.
Speaking during Crossfire talk show on Chamgei FM, Mr Magerer who was accompanied by Emurua Dikiir MP Jonah Ngeno, said he made the decision to quit the opposition party on Thursday last week.
“I am no longer in the party, I made my decision to quit on Thursday last week and I am just saying this to end the turmoil in people’s minds. Though I am ODM’s life member, my spirit has refused it,” he told the radio show host Michael Bowen.
The former Kipkelion MP nonetheless said what remains for him to do, is to formally walk out of the party.
This comes in the wake of Magerer’s snub on Monday of the probe committee led by lawyer Fred Achok, formed to investigate the violent ejection from the recent ODM parliamentary group meeting.
During the talk show, Magerer argued his contractual terms allowed him to terminate the contract under certain conditions and the employer was also at liberty to do the same.
He said it would have been simple for ODM to fire him as the party’s Executive Director rather than humiliate him through forceful ejection from Orange House.
“If the party leadership had determined that it had become difficult to work with me, it would have simply convened the National Executive Council meeting and announced the party no longer required my services and write me a letter over the same,” he said.
But on Tuesday, while attending the funeral of former Kenya National Union of Teachers chairman Joseph Chirchir in Litein, Kericho County, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga said there were no plans to fire Magerer.
“That is nonsense. There is no plan by the party to sack my friend Magerer, he proved himself to be a loyal friend when he withstood the Jubilee wave in this part of the country to stand with ODM in the last elections,” he said.
But the former ODM executive director accused Raila of allegedly being one of the architects behind his humiliation at Orange House.
“Going by the body language of the former Prime Minister, I am a 100 per cent sure that my ordeal was organised around the table of none other than Raila Odinga. His own body guards later told me that much,” Magerer claimed.
He further claimed Raila was also behind the infamous ‘Men in Black’ caused mayhem that led to the cancellation of ODM party elections.
Speaking earlier to journalists in Kericho, Magerer claimed that top ODM leadership wanted him out so that they could lay their hands on the Sh80 million recently allocated to the party through the Political Parties Fund.
“The hands of these people are really itching and they are doing everything they can to get rid of me so that they can access the funds, which are public funds meant to benefit the party and its membership,” he said.
This happened even as pressure continued to pile on the ODM leader to purge the party rebels rather than give them more arsenal to rock it from within.
Senator Otieno Kajwang asked the former Prime Minister to out members who refuse to toe the line saying, “he is increasingly losing his political capital” in his Nyanza, Western and Coast strongholds.
“I support Raila, but he makes his own decisions. You are not a better leader when you are seen to let some people go. He should do what Musalia Mudavadi did in his (UDF) party: force the rebels to seek fresh mandate on another party. If he goes into the referendum when the rebellion is still on, he should be sure of losing it and that would effectively bring the curtains down on his political life,” said Kajwang.
standardmedia.co.ke
