Onyango Oloo: State House tried in vain to stop my defection to ODM
Former TNA secretary general Onyango Oloo on Friday claimed State House made frantic calls to block his Wednesday defection to ODM in vain.
The former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s point man in Nyanza and one of his chief strategists disclosed how the president’s men made frantic calls to impress upon him to rescind his decision to decamp from the ruling coalition.
“I received several phone calls from State House imploring me not to defect but I told them I had made up my mind. They even tried to entice me with undisclosed big appointment which I declined,” Mr Oloo said.
He did not disclose the person who made the actual call.
He accused Devolution Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri of displaying Jubilee frustrations following his defection by attempting to link him to “nonexistent” scandals.
INVESTIGATIONS
Mr Kiunjuri had said that investigations against Mr Oloo over corruption claims during his service under his ministry were at an advanced stage.
“Politicians run to their villages for community protection. I want to remind Oloo that I have a secret dossier as he created a mess in the ministry,” he said.
But a defiant Mr Oloo, speaking on a vernacular radio station in Kisumu on Friday morning questioned why the CS had to wait until his exit from the government to raise corruption queries against him.
“If you have a scandal do you run to the government for protection or you move out of the government?” posed Mr Oloo.
CORRUPTION CLAIMS
He told Mr Kiunjuri that he was not on the run and dared him for a legal duel over his corruption claims.
He added: “If this is the trend by Jubilee that your scandals are only unmasked when you leave them then how many scandals do we have in Jubilee that are still hidden under the carpet? If I were a thief I would not have moved from government even if I was made a sweeper.”
“I am not on the run. I will accompany Raila to Homabay today (Friday) and on Sunday I will be in Nairobi,” said the former TNA secretary general.
Mr Oloo had served as the chairman of the Lake Basin Development Authority before he was replaced by former Rarieda MP Raphael Tuju.
On Friday, he instead sensationally claimed Mr Kiunjuri had hatched a plot to auction the Sh4 billion mall to his kin from Central Kenya.
“The minister was shocked to see the mega project in Luoland. It is the only mega project in East and central Africa owned by the government. They now want to auction it to their kin and have already found its buyers,” Mr Oloo said.
CONMANSHIP
He said the mall was a brainchild of the grand coalition government whose construction was approved by the ministry of Regional Development under the then minister Fred Gumo and Permanent Secretary Carey Orege.
Announcing his defection at the Public service in Kisumu on Wednesday, Mr Oloo termed the Jubilee government “a den of thieves and ethnic chauvinists”.
He said the Jubilee government had been hijacked by people who did not participate in “hunting for the animal but had now come when the meat was ready and were now munching it indiscriminately”.
“TNA was neutral and founded on ideologies we believed in that would take Kenya to the next level and unite them. However, little did we know we were being led into a vile and vicious political conmanship,” he said.
He added: “”The Luo people have a saying that you can do business with a thief and a witch and remain clean but when you marry them you also become a thief and a witch.”
