Siaya senator James Orengo has officially relocated to the village politics at the expense of being at the national limelight.
Of late, James Orengo has been urging Siaya residents to vote for him as their incoming governor not because of what he has done for the residents but due to the fact that he has always helped Jakom (Raila) “up there.”
During one of the burial ceremonies in Ugenya constituency, the senator jogged the memory of the residents on how he helped Raila and attended the illegal swearing in ceremony at Nairobi’s Uhuru park.
As a result, Orengo feels that the residents of Siaya county owes him and should reward him with the gubernatorial seat since he has “helped baba” since time immemorial.
As we all know, James Orengo is the senator of Siaya county which has had its fair share of challenges laced with massive corruption scandals. The residents of Siaya entrusted Mr. Orengo to do oversight of the county funds and ensure that the county leaders are put to task.
However, Orengo has terribly failed in his oversight role since no corrupt Siaya county official has ever been brought for questioning in the senate like the other counties. Simply put, the senator is playing safe (by not keeping the county government on check) because by not antagonizing Rasanga, he will easily “inherit his position” (he is waiting for thond wuor/shoe laces from Rasanga).
The man has surrounded himself with mouthy campaigners who not only bully residents to vote for six piece but also remind them that no one knows them.
Recently, Ugunja member of parliament Opiyo Wandai in a local rally urged the residents to vote for Orengo and reject the rest for being nobodies in the party.
According to wandai, the people eyeing the ODM ticket for the Siaya top seat were just masqueraders and late comers who were not known by anybody in the party. In a nutshell, for them it is either Orengo or James Orengo.
Despite the dictatorial efforts in the villages to force James Orengo down the throats of the people, the senator has one big challenge to deal with-he is not popular!
Recently during an Azimio rally in Siaya county that was attended by the ODM top leadership including Mombasa governor Ali Hassan Joho, James Orengo got the embarrassment of his lifetime when him together with governor Rasanga tried locking out Mr. Gumbo who is equally eyeing the seat from speaking.
The residents could not stomach attempts by Rasanga and Orengo to deny Gumbo a chance to speak. Therefore, they threatened to end the event since they were heckling and insisting that Gumbo had to address them.
Attempts by Rasanga to cool them down were futile and it forced Gumbo to leave his seat just to make them relax. From that day, Orengo embraced the bitter reality that Siaya county was interested in development track records as opposed to track records of “helping Raila up there.”
Fastforward, Gumbo a few days ago while addressing the press accused senator James Orengo of trying to force Nyanza into the dark nyayo era of single party despite his multi party democracy records.
Gumbo wondered how comes multi party was okay for James Orengo during those days as opposed to now. Below was his full speech directed at the senator:
“I am shocked that people like Orengo are now advocating for single parties within Kenya. The first person to practice multipartism in Kenya is James orengo. In 1997 Raila was in NDP, why didn’t he find it prudent to join Raila in the NDP? He ran on Ford Kenya and won the Ugenya parliamentary seat.
These are things we must say. In 2002 when Raila Kibaki Tosha Orengo didn’t follow him to NARC. Orengo remained in SDP and even ran as a president! Why was multipartism okay for him then and it is not Okay now?
Let us allow it. I want to say that as the Luo community, what must unite us is the Raila presidency. Down here let us give Raila people who are going to work.
The last thing we want to do is to give Raila a governor of Siaya country with no record who’s coming to sleep and Raila will have to play the dual role of being the president and the governor of Siaya county because people will be telling him your governor is asleep.
And btw Raila is very clear these people are not telling us anything when they’re walking around my competitors they’re telling you how they fought for multiparty so what? The first liberation for Kenya was political liberation, the second liberation was about our freedoms and liberties, the third liberation which Raila is talking about is economic liberation.
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