• In a statement to newsrooms, the Minority Leader told the trio to forget Raila’s endorsement ahead of the 2022 elections.
• He said ODM will oppose any plans to have Raila endorse any of the Nasa principals, saying they had long moved on from the coalition.
Image: FILE
The implosion within the National Super Alliance appears to be slowly getting out of hand as the principals and their allies engage in a vicious war of words over ODM leader Raila Odinga’s 2018 mock swearing-in.
On Monday, ODM national chairman John Mbadi fired a salvo at the three principals – Musalia Mudavadi, Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetangula – describing them as "incoherent cowards" who depend on endorsements but cannot stand to be counted.
In a statement to newsrooms, the Minority Leader told the trio to forget Raila’s endorsement ahead of the 2022 elections.
He said ODM will oppose any plans to have Raila endorse any of the Nasa principals, saying they had long moved on from the coalition.
“They are cowards. They cannot stand on their own feet and they are trying to force Mr Odinga to endorse them. Mr Odinga will do no such endorsement,” Mbadi said in a statement.
He added: “As a party, we will strongly discourage Hon. Odinga from doing so. We encourage Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetang'ula and Musalia Mudavadi to stop whining and be their own men for once in their political careers."
"The three are free to continue clinging to NASA. That too is consistent with their nature. They are never able to read the signs of the times and move.”
Mbadi was responding to Kalonzo and Mudavadi who had hit at Raila for failing to live up to the Nasa agreement which required that he (Raila) should not contest and back one of the candidates.
The Suba South MP detailed how the three principals chickened out of the Uhuru Park swearing-in, adding that their 2018 actions show that they are both inconsistent and incoherent cowards.
“Nothing they say now will change H.E Odinga’s position that he will not endorse any of them because they can never fight for themselves and can therefore never fight for Kenyans,” Mbadi said.
On Sunday, Kalonzo said that as a senior counsel he could not participate in an illegal swearing-in while Mudavadi said Raila duped them into backing him in 2017.
But Mbadi said Kalonzo was not yet a Senior Counsel by the time of oath-taking, casting doubt on whether the former Vice President deserved the coveted SC title.
“Yesterday, Kalonzo claimed that as a Senior Counsel, he could not bring himself to an illegality that the swearing-in was. That despite the fact that Kalonzo was not a Senior Counsel at the time of the swearing-in and that even today, there are serious doubts whether he deserves the title.”
“Musalia on the other hand abandoned the Nigeria telephone line narrative and the supposed blockade by national security officers. He now claims that Hon Odinga duped them into backing him in 2017.”