Bernard Namunane and Sam Kiplagat
15 August 2007
Nairobi — ODM Kenya finally split on Tuesday as Lang'ata MP Raila Odinga led his group to take over another party, parting ways with Mwingi North MP Kalonzo Musyoka.
Mr Odinga received certificates of the original Orange Democratic Movement Party from the lawyer who had initially registered the orange brand as a political outfit after the 2005 referendum victory by the lobby group.
Elsewhere, Mr Musyoka led a group of ODM Kenya supporters, mainly from Eastern Province to Machakos Town, where they held a strategy meeting. In a manner resembling the fate which befell the original Ford movement in 1992, Mr Musyoka's group is now effectively in control of ODM-K while Mr Odinga's team has taken control of ODM.
Mr Odinga's group, which includes fellow ODM presidential aspirants William Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi, Najib Balala and Joseph Nyagah, said they would still pursue court orders to take over ODM-K from Mr Musyoka.
But in Machakos, Mr Musyoka branded Mr Odinga "a coward who could not face up to any fight." He described the move as a defection by Mr Odinga and termed it "good riddance" and called on the ODM-K election board chaired by retired Judge Richard Otieno Kwach to resign.
At Orange House in Nairobi, Mr Odinga and his camp officially took over the Orange Democratic Movement Party of Kenya, which was registered in November 2005. Mr Odinga's group announced the move after a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting. Mr Musyoka had joined Labour Party of Kenya chairperson Julia Ojiambo at a press conference at Serena Hotel, where he announced his decision to skip the NEC meeting. He then headed for Machakos, some 70 kilometres away from Nairobi.
But at Orange House, song, dance and ululations escorted Mr Mugambi Imanyara, the man behind ODM Party of Kenya, as he handed over the instruments of the party to Mr Odinga after the NEC meeting.
They included the registration certificate, the party symbol (an unpeeled orange fruit) and the party constitution, which Mr Odinga later handed over to interim chairman Henry Kosgey for "safe custody."
Said Mr Odinga: "There are very few occasions when I lack words to express myself; and this is one of them. ODM is like the River Nile, which starts in the mountains surrounding Lake Victoria and flows all the way to the Mediterranean. Some people were trying to stop it but it will surely reach the Mediterranean."
Deal agreed
Mr Imanyara said: "It did not take long for us to agree to hand over the party to the true owners. We met three times before the deal was agreed." ODM will hold a special National Delegates Conference on September 1, to pick its candidate to face President Kibaki in the December elections.
Branches registered under ODM-K will revert to ODM as will all the delegates, the Odinga team said.
Present were Mr Ruto, Mr Mudavadi, Mr Balala and Mr Nyagah, who accused Mr Musyoka of working with forces outside ODM-K to block them from winning the next General Election.
The final parting of Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka, who have been waging a war of supremacy against each other since the formation of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), mirrors the split of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) in 1992, when Mr Kenneth Matiba failed to work together with the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
While Mr Matiba came away with Ford Asili, Jaramogi Odinga named his splinter party Ford Kenya and the two went ahead to lose to President Daniel arap Moi the multi-party elections of 1992.
Indications that Mr Raila Odinga and his camp were searching for another party became evident last month when attempts by ODM interim officials Kosgey (chairman) and Peter Anyang' Nyong'o (secretary-general) sought to be legally registered as officials. The Registrar of Societies had declined to recognise them in place of Mr Daniel Maanzo (chairman), Mr Abraham Chepkonga (secretary general) and Ms Lilian Aluga (treasurer).
Three weeks ago, their attempt to convince Mr Chepkonga to declare that he had resigned from the party last September backfired when he later turned up at Mr Maanzo's office to claim that he had been arm-twisted to accept to let go the party.
Yesterday, Mr Odinga said the dispute surrounding the registered officials and the court case were the reasons they had decided to negotiate with Mr Imanyara over the party that has ODM as its initials and has a symbol that carries their mantra of "the future is orange."
He said: "I did not know Mr Imanyara before but I made it my business to know him when it became clear that our hump was stuck in the mud. I saw problems were going to arise when some people started saying that they will only recognise Daniel Maanzo, Abraham Chepkonga and Lilian Aluga."
He added: "I wanted to be a proud member of a party whose chairman is Kosgey, secretary general is Nyong'o and Magara is the treasurer," he said.
Mr Odinga said he was introduced to Mr Imanyara by some friends.
What Mr Odinga did not make public is that they were shocked by Mr Musyoka's statement two weeks ago when he defected from LDP to Labour Party of Kenya (LPK) and asked Mr Maanzo to take over the running of affairs of ODM-K.
It was then that Mr Ruto, the Eldoret North MP, approached Mr Imanyara with a suggestion that they negotiate over a party which was of no use to him.
Consequently, three meetings were held in Karen-the first between Mr Ruto and Mr Imanyara and Mr Odinga was invited to the second one. Other officials of ODM Party of Kenya Mr Said Kaitany (chairman), Mr Tony Chege (secretary general), Abel Bulimo (organising secretary) and Judy Koskei (deputy treasurer) were present during the third and final meeting during which the deal to hand over the party was struck.
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