ODM has resolved to kick out two rebel MPs from Luo Nyanza as party leader Raila Odinga heads to his home turf in a meet-the-people tour to cut perceived rebels down to size.
Rebellious Rongo MP Dalmas Otieno and his Kisumu Central counterpart Ken Obura are the first high-flying casualties and may soon be forced into by-elections.
The well-orchestrated plan will also target Parliamentary committee chairmen that have defied party positions, especially Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba, who chairs the powerful Parliamentary Accounts Committee.
The resolution was arrived at during a meeting between Raila and ODM MPs in Nairobi. The legislators are said to have told Raila to his face that he either takes control of the party or he “will be left with nothing”.
“We told him, in no uncertain terms, that the way he has been handling the party is not the best. He responded by asking for party discipline and unity, but we told him that the time for empty rhetoric is over.
“We demanded that the party kicks out MPs who have either switched allegiance or are rocking the boat from within,” said an MP who attended the closed-door meeting.
Last weekend, Raila met various groups of people in Kisumu town, where Obura was extensively discussed.
The revelations emerged as ODM turned the heat on their embattled executive director Magerer Lang’at, terming him incompetent, deceitful and a mole of the ruling Jubilee Coalition.
“Magerer is a blatant liar, deceitful, malicious, duplicitous, wicked, immoral, a saboteur and a mole,” said a hard-hitting statement from Orange House, ODM Headquarters, yesterday, signed by four directors, including acting CEO Joshua Kawino.
The decision to act decisively was reached only hours after Ababu, Magerer, Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua and Kilifi North MP Gideon Mung’aro met for a second time, apparently to plot their exit from both Cord and ODM (Mutua is a Wiper member).
Sources indicated that Dalmas and Obura will be compelled to appear before a disciplinary committee to show cause why action should not be taken against them in accordance with the Political Parties Act.
The National Executive Committee will then meet to ratify their removal before formally writing to the Registrar of Political Parties, Lucy Ndung’u, to notify her of the party’s decision.
“Their fate has been sealed,” said an MP who did not wish to be named. “What we are doing are mere procedural issues to get it right with the law.”
The disciplinary committee formed to probe the Magerer fiasco and chaired by lawyer Fred Athok will hear the matter.
Today, Raila and his loyal troops will be in Oyugis to meet all elected ODM officials from the four Luo Nyanza counties in a move that is believed to be intended to restore party discipline.
Other perceived rebel MPs from Nyanza are Millie Odhiambo, Agustino Neto, Silvance Osele, David Ochieng and George Oner.
Yesterday, Orange House officials took on Magerer, following his attacks on Raila in a media interview, and challenged him to return an official vehicle which has been in his custody for over a year.
“We find Magerer’s outbursts an attempt to cover-up his inadequacies in management and a ploy to play to the gallery by peddling lies which he cannot substantiate,” they stated.
The terse statement was signed by Kawino, director of Membership Rosemary Kariuki, director of Political Affairs Wafula Buke and director of Operations Caesar Asiyo.
Magerer has claimed that Raila coordinated his unceremonious ejection from Orange House and even the infamous men-in-black episode that disrupted the party’s internal polls on February 28.
“The party leader has no moral authority to point fingers at African strongmen, because he is one of them,” Magerer reportedly said. “We thank God and Kenyans that he is not President today. How would he be ruling, with all these goons around him?”
But in response, the Orange House secretariat maintained that Magerer should take responsibility for the botched polls, accusing him of insubordination and leaking party strategy documents to Jubilee.
The four directors said that Magerer did not attend all the Saba Saba and Okoa Kenya rallies, including in his Rift Valley backyard, instead choosing to attend meetings and fundraisers organised by ODM’s political opponents.
“It is telling that, in the last two weeks he has been away from Orange House, the Secretariat has been peaceful, staff working in harmony and effective at planning and executing party activities”.
– the-star.co.ke
