• When they arrived at the airport, they were briefly stopped as police insisted they have their luggage scanned.
• This angered the legislator as airport officials told him there was no scanner there and they had to have their luggage scanned as a requirement.
Image: FACEBOOK/OSCAR SUDI
Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi and a British billionaire philanthropist were briefly stopped at Wilson Airport after they landed from Eldoret.
The Briton, Michael Spencer is also a Member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom.
He is the founder of NEX Group, a UK-based business focused on electronic markets and post-trade business which was acquired by CME Group in November 2018.
Also in their company was controversial Tanzanian politician and former minister for natural resources and tourism Lazaro Nyalandu.
A manifest seen shows they were in a chartered flight from Eldoret to Wilson Airport.
When they arrived at the airport, they were briefly stopped as police insisted they have their luggage scanned.
They had followed to use the VIP terminal but were turned back and told to use another area.
This angered the legislator as airport officials told him there was no scanner there and they had to have their luggage scanned as a requirement.
They agreed later on after it emerged the airport officials would not allow them to pass through.
Image: BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
The plane picked the two foreigners from Tanzania on January 2 and flew to Nairobi.
They left Nairobi for Eldoret to meet an unknown person for an undisclosed mission on January 4 and flew back the following day.
The last time Sudi had a similar fracas at the same airport was in August last year when Turkish businessman Harun Aydin was arrested and deported over money-laundering links and illegal movement into and out of Kenya.
Aydin who was travelling from Uganda at that time was part of Deputy President William Ruto’s entourage that was a few days earlier supposed to fly to Entebbe only for the DP to be stopped from boarding their plane at Wilson.
Officials at that time said that Dr Ruto failed to seek the President's clearance to travel as required by the protocol.
It is still not yet known what the two foreigners were doing in the company of Sudi on Wednesday.
He did not respond to our queries. Nyalandu who was a minister during the Jakaya Kikwete administration was in November 2020 blocked from entering Kenya by the Tanzanian government on suspicion that he was seeking asylum.
Spencer is a British financial broker, politician and investor who is said to operate a number of business interests in the hospitality, aviation, deep-sea fishing and horse breeding industries.
The three left Eldoret for Nairobi on Wednesday at 10 am aboard a Pilatus PC-12 private jet tail number 5Y SRI belonging to Sirai Air but operated by East African Air Charters (EAAC) Limited.
The plane had flown from Nairobi to Eldoret on Tuesday afternoon and arrived at the airport at about 4 pm according to the company that owns it.
“Checking in at Eldoret International- a big, beautiful and empty airport,” said EAAC on its social media pages.
Sudi held a press conference in Eldoret town together with Uasin Gishu governor Jackson Mandago at about 9 am on Wednesday.
Once in Nairobi however, it is when the drama happened.
Sudi who has had several run-ins with the law has two pending cases in court.
He was arrested in 2020 for engaging in hate speech and offensive conduct.
He is also facing another charge of forging academic papers.
Edited by D Tarus