Newly nominated Tourism Chief Administrative Secretary Wilson Sossion has a story to tell.
From being hounded out of a teachers union, winning an ODM nomination to losing the UDA Bomet senatorial seat during primaries where he emerged third with 45,371 votes.
In a previous interview with the Star, Sossion accused the government of orchestrating his removal as Knut secretary general to stop his quest for agitating for the improvement of the teaching profession.
Sossion said the government turned colleagues against him with the promise of restoring union benefits, which it had earlier withdrawn.
“The government made it clear to them that I, Sossion, was the problem and that if I was removed, the union would be okay,” he said then.
“The government had withheld union dues and was threatening members. Union staff were going without salaries. Anyone could have been tempted."
A day after his exit, TSC opened talks for a better pay deal for teachers. CEO Nancy Macharia met with union officials for negotiations on a new CBA at the Safari Park Hotel.
Sossion, a strong leader known to be unshaken by threats, held that "for the continuity of the union" his exit was the best option.
He said for the past six years, the government was fighting him for allegedly radicalising teachers.
The war, he said, picked up strongly in 2015.
That year, Knut under Sossion held a 36-day nationwide teachers’ strike pushing the government to sign their Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The former President Uhuru Kenyatta had called for a meeting with union officials, a request Sossion disregarded.
In 2017, ODM nominated Sossion to Parliament. The move handed the government a stick to easily beat him out of Knut. Their argument? He was no longer a teacher and could therefore not represent teachers.
There was a fallout between some leaders in his camp and other officials led by then-chairperson Mudzo Nzili.
At the centre of the controversy was the question of whether the giant teachers union should settle for the pay deal brokered by the President.
The other option was for the matter to be taken to the Supreme Court for judicial determination, which Sossion was pushing for.
Eventually, the contended Sh54 billion teachers CBA was signed in what Sossion said would be the beginning of an active campaign to oust him.
