The death of Kasipul MP Charles Ong’ondo Were brought so much anguish to his family and supporters. The political class in Homa Bay led by Governor Gladys Wanga could not contain their anger.
Wanga wept openly and grieved for days on end. This was uncharacteristic of a leader of such high calibre. The Governor’s conduct during the funeral period became the subject of discussion in many spaces.
Were was her staunch supporter and his death, under so painful circumstances, must have caused untold suffering to her.
However, it exposed a side of Wanga that people have hitherto never known. She came out as fragile and easily broken.
She made pronouncements that took people aback. Her statements were ladened with incitement and consistent with a pre-coded script for a narrative.
Later she reluctantly issued a counterstatement aimed at indicating a different path but the message had sunk. Unnamed individuals were given stern warning with pointed fingers not to attend the funeral.
Wanga has risen in the political ranks so rapidly that pundits wonder whether there is a hidden force behind her.
The governor was born 44 years ago and grew up in a political family. Her father, the late John Nyasuna, was a close confidante to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who served as a councillor and chairperson of Kisumu county council.
She attended Kisumu Girls High School and later Kenyatta University for a degree course in health management. In 2013, she plunged into fulltime politics and clinched the Homa Bay Woman Representative seat.
This feat was easily attained courtesy of county seats sharing arrangement midwifed by the southern Nyanza political maverick, Senator Otieno Kajwang’. In that equation Cyprian Awiti beat Philip Okundi to become the pioneer governor of the county.
The ODM party candidates for each of the 8 constituencies were also agreed upon in a meeting chaired by Kajwang’ and tickets handed over to them. This was meant to avoid an acrimonious fight for the party nominations that would have affected presidential prospects of Raila Odinga.
Events have taken place since her entry into Parliament that have buttressed her meteoric rise. Some of these events were tragic while some were activities that presented opportunities.
She grabbed every opportunity that availed itself like the proverbial journeyman in the wilderness. Senator Kajwang’ suddenly died in late 2014 and a by-election held in early 2015.
Kajwang had served as the county chairperson of ODM in Homa Bay. In the ensuing bruising party elections, Wanga managed to prevail as the county chair against Homa Bay Town MP Opondo Kaluma.
Kaluma was being fronted by the county government under the stewardship of Awiti. This propelled her to a higher pedestal in the pecking order of the county politics. Wanga later became the point person of Raila, giving her a clear head start in the 2017 general elections, where she retained her seat unopposed.
The politician would abandon her erstwhile supporter for the party chairmanship the then Kasipul MP Oyugi Magwanga to support Awiti’s re-election as governor.
She stood with Awiti throughout the grueling electoral dispute that dragged up to the Supreme Court. This helped her inherit a substantial vote basket of Awiti.
In 2022, the party decided to use the direct nomination method for the first time. Wanga was one of the first beneficiaries of this executive fiat.
Hurriedly, the party helped the contenders to negotiate a joint front. She found herself saddled with her now nemesis Magwanga as her running-mate. Evans Kidero who had shifted base from Nairobi galvanised the rest of the dissenting voices to give her a run for her money.
All the same, she went on to win the seat with a comfortable majority votes. That was the first serious challenge to her political career. However, the political turmoil in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election helped shield her to some extent.
The need to be part of the team defending Raila in court became a matter of great importance. The twin desire to ward off any intrusion in the ODM strongholds also gave her opportunity to recover her gravitas.
The elections and the resultant violence that accompanied the sufuria demonstrations gave Homa Bay County the first glimpse of organised criminal gangs.
The gangs were on hire to harass political opponents. They were spread across the county and came in various groups, different sophistication and varied prices.
Sometimes the demand was high and required supplies from outside of the county. The neighboring counties of Migori and Kisumu, therefore, became supply grounds for supplementary and complementary goons. They had become sophisticated in terms of skills and equipment.
Some accessed firearms while majority continued to use crude weapons as knives, machetes, rungus and axes. The security forces were overwhelmed, appeared compromised and did the bidding of the perpetrators of violence.
The sponsored violence was not limited to political events. In Kasipul, it became a normal occurrence in funerals. Bereaved families always feared for the eventual arrival of any leading politicians. The politicians would take over the funeral programmes and proceed to cause mayhem without regards to the grief of the families.
When UDA and ODM joined in the broad-based government agreement, antagonism increased, tension heightened and the violent encounters became more vicious.
The political boundaries became blurred and it was then not feasible to dichotomise the political landscape anymore.
UDA politicians found fertile ground to criticise the county government as they extolled the goodies of the national government. This did not go down well with the local leadership as they tried to blame the national government for sabotaging devolution.
President William Ruto had made some key appointments to national positions, a number from Homa Bay County. Some of these were courtesy of the coalition agreement while others were purely UDA appointments. However, they combined to shift attention from Wanga.
She had just inherited John Mbadi’s position as the national chairperson of ODM upon his appointment as Treasury Cabinet Secretary.
The presence of interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo and Kidero fed into the forced marriage with Magwanga to give her sleepless nights.
While she maintained a face of cordial relationship with her deputy in public, it is common knowledge that they at best tolerate each other. The recent gun drama involving Magwanga further testifies to the frosty relationship.
It is in this context that Were met his tragic death in Nairobi while coming from Parliament Buildings. He had cut a niche for himself as a fierce defender of the governor.
Indeed, he was the only MP from the county who regularly accompanied the governor to public events. In his fiery speech,s he alluded to political fights organised against Wanga.
The rest of the governor’s acolytes were the retinue of MCAs who owed their party nominations in 2022 to Wanga. Were was the highest profile politician from Homa Bay at the sides of Wanga.
The death was not only tragic but personal to her. The trauma she went through must have pushed her to make certain declarations that went against the grain of the party policy positions.
She declared the death an assassination. She squarely blamed the security apparatus thereby fingering the national government.
The unsavoury remarks put her on the crosshairs of her political mentor and party leader, Raila. She was forced to tone down her inciting crusade just before the burial. But the tension caused was palpable and had scarred the political rapport between Raila and Ruto.
The political ramifications of the vitriol caused by the reckless public declarations in this period have left an egg in her face.
Her supporters have found themselves in an embarrassing situation between a rock and a hard place. Her detractors and opponents within and outside the county have found a rare opportunity to demand her pound of flesh.
The writer
is a political
commentator.
