Aspirants appeal for Party Leader urgent intervention
By Special Correspondent
Kenya Today is today exposing an astonishing plot that suggests clear plans to pre-rig the Nairobi County ODM nominations in favour of a predetermined group of aspirants aligned Governor Evans Kidero.
A Nairobi aspirants meeting held at the Basketball Gymnasium at Nyayo Stadium Wednesday morning, purportedly convened to discuss and ensure free and fair nominations in Nairobi on 25th April 2017, turned out to be a sham conference called to shamelessly showcase the brazen hostile take-over of the Nairobi nomination electoral process.
The meeting left doubt that the ODM National Election Board had abdicated it’s primary mandate and relinquished it entirely to Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero through his privately run Lavington based campaign secretatiat EK Centre.
Governor Kidero who is himself a candidate in the forthcoming general elections, is said to have used his vast financial resources to compromise key figures at Orange House to allow him powers to coordinate and convene the entire nomination exercise and in the process effectively render the ODM National Election Board into a lame-duck commission.
Kidero is further accused of having handpicked cronies who would serve in the sensitive Nairobi County Election Committee a move that has not gone down well with aspirants. The biggest worry however is Kidero’s unfettered access to the inner workings of the NEB.
Apart from being seein as undermining democracy, there are also serious ethical questions being raised relating to an apparent conflict of interests by Governor Kidero and the party’s Nairobi Branch chairman George Aldwa whose actions point to a conspiracy to disenfranchise aspirants and subvert the entire electoral process in favour of the governor and his henchmen.
Already, according to a high-level whistleblower with links to higher echelons of ODM, a group senior aspirants with interests in Nairobi on Wednesday afternoon sought and held an impromptu meeting with the Party Leader Raila Odinga and asked him to order an investigation and ensure a level-playing ground for all interested and qualified candidates. Raila is said to have ordered the party’s Secretariat to look into their grievances and report to him before the end of the week.
For its part, the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (PPDT) has reportedly formed special committee to monitor the ODM polls which is bound to raise numerous complaints. The PPDT is an independent quasi-judicial body with the mandate of resolving disputes arising from political parties’ activities.
At Nyayo Stadium, Governor Kidero made no effort to hide the fact that his private office and empoyees were in charge of proceedings. The EK Center directors were present and making it known they were responsible for organizing the meeting and set up infrastructure and prerequisite logistics towards entire management the party primaries in Nairobi using their own handpicked county election board.
To add insult to injury, the Nairobi Election Committee was selected without any known criteria and in the most opaque process ever. Sources said the officials were known friends of the notorious quartet of Harriet Achieng, Paul Aol, Pastor Lumumba and George Ndonji who are all senior henchmen of Governor Evans Kidero.
During the meeting, Kidero unilaterally announced that party nomination certificates would be issued at the wards and constituency polling centres which is a departure from all previous ODM nominations. This declaration has raised apprehension among majority aspirants.
It remains to be seen how ODM will reclaim legitimacy of its Nairobi nomination process with only a few days remaining to the nomination date but the Party Leader is said to be concerned to avert any major fall out that may hand Jubilee the gubernatorial and majority legislative seats.
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