By Kamau Antony
The mouth-watering race for Nairobi Senate has taken a new twist after Jubilee’s Sakaja Johnson hired prominent city lawyer Kibe Muigai to represent Bukachi Chapia in a case aimed at barring Sifuna from running to represent the county of Nairobi at the Senate.
Even as they held a conference at Bomas of Kenya to endorse Uhuru and Ruto, widespread panic and anxiety gripped Jubilee circles when the ODM suddenly withdrew the direct senate nomination of Bukachi Chapia and replaced him with maverick lawyer Edwin Sifuna. The development threw JP into a spin and forced an emergency meeting involving the party’s strategists on Saturday night.
The development forced Jubilee Party nominee Sakaja Johnson back to the drawing board and it is sad he spent the better part of the weekend consulting with Jubilee high command on how to counter the surprising nomination of Sifuna.
Eventually, Sakaja’s consultations culminated to resources being made available for him to hire Jubilee lawyer Kibe Muigai to represent Chapia in a suit filed under certificate of urgency at the court of appeal to block the candidature of Edwin Sifuna.
On it’s part, ODM has lined up a battery of all its senior lawyers led by Siaya Senator and James Orengo and Senior Counsel George Oraro.
Chapia is reported to have intially agreed to step down in favour of Edwin Sifuna following a meeting chaired by ODM Party Leader Raila Odinga, but changed his mind after meeting representatives from Sakaja Johnson secretariat who reportedly tabled an irrestible deal in exchange for agreeing to be used to block Sifuna’s candidature.
Analysts of city politics see the appointment of Sifuna as a political slam-dunk to NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga and Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero in the battle for control of vote-rich Nairobi County.
The author is a freelance journalist and a contributing editor at Kenya Today Inc.
