Corridors of Power

Wednesday, 13 April 2011 00:04 BY POLITICAL DESK

Cherangany MP Joshua Kuttuny told the Uhuru Park homecoming rally for the Ocampo Six that 12 men who claimed to be from ODM accosted him last week at a Nairobi hotel demanding to know why he has been a thorn in PM Raila Odinga’s flesh. Our mole now says the men were actually not ODM supporters but part of a ploy orchestrated by two former MPs — one from ODM and the other from PNU — to extort money from the rally's organising committee of which Kuttuny was a member. The former PNU legislator called his ODM counterpart and told him to come with the youths who would then proceed to threaten Kuttuny and demand cash. The ploy went according to plan and the ODM politician came just in time and pleaded with the youths not to hurt Kuttuny. Reportedly terrified by the incident, the committee decided to give Sh300,000 in cash to the ODM man "to buy lunch for the youths" and secure safety for Kuttuny, who stayed at the city hotel for several hours until he was assured the young men had left.
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Long after former South Mugirango MP Omingo Magara decamped from ODM, he is still listed as the party's national treasurer on the party's official website www.odm.co.ke. Magara left the party in the lead-up to the by-election in which he lost. He used the Monday homecoming rally to announce for the umpteenth time that he had long quit ODM.
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ODM secretary general Prof Anyang' Nyong'o is reported to have instructed lawyers to take legal action against those tarnishing his name by claiming he had authored a letter to the ICC. Despite ODM's and Nyong'o's denial that he had written the letter, his deputy Mohamud Ali and Saboti MP Eugene Wamalwa read out sections of it at the Monday rally at Uhuru Park.