Eliud Owalo Fights Kidero Over Graft as Questions are Raised Over his Degree Certificate

Former campaign manager of Raila Odinga presidential secretariat has viciously tore into the integrity record of Nairobi Governor Dr Evans Kidero and Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba.

The ODM Secretary General is facing rancorous vitriol after he released to journalists a recording of a private conversation he and other ODM leaders had with the party’s boss and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

While Raila is said not to be perturbed by the recording, ODM rank and file have all reacted with shock and fury, terming the secretary general an ‘ungrateful

Ababu is corrupt; and the weeks ahead will be his waterloo.

Kidero is accused of corruption though no one has ever presented the accusations in a court of law in form private proceedings, nor has he been charged by state organs like the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission or the office of Director of Public Prosecutions.

Owalo jumped on the swrling corruption allegations against the Nairobi Governor over the weekend, sending to newsrooms a terse statement calling on the governor to take responsibility over Mumias sugar scam.

“It does not help the Party cause to continue clinging onto Kidero in the face of serious allegations of graft at Mumias Sugar Company to the detriment of the people of Western Kenya whose single largest source of livelihood is now at stake,” wrote Owalo.

“Governor Evans Kidero has been accused of systematically running down Mumias Sugar Company during his tenure as the Managing Director of the giant Sugar Miller.He was not MD of Mumias by virtue of being the Governor of Nairobi, and he must therefore be ready to bear responsibility as to costs and consequences of the same without dragging the Party into it,” he adds.

But as Owalo turns heat on these officials, a potentially damaging revelation on his academic exploits may destroy his political future completely.

Owalo is alleged to have faked his undergraduate degree having failed to graduate from Kenyatta University.

An aide to Dr Kidero told Kahawa Tungu that people like Owalo ‘invented good governance’ after KANU had been defeated in 2002 and reminded him that he was conspicuously absent in the ‘second liberation struggle’.They also accuse him of forging an undergraduate degree which he tried to use to secure a chance at an MBA class in the University of Nairobi.

According to sources close to the Nairobi Governor, “Owalo was a well-known beneficiary of the plunder that was YK ’92 and cannot purport to lecture people on good governance.”

Owalo’s degree scandal – if true – may seriously affect the credibility of the rising ODM stalwart ahead of 2017 elections.

Owalo is said to be eyeing the Nairobi Gubernatorial post hoping to replace Kidero. The incumbent is not taking anything to chance having started building 25 classrooms at the Olympic Primary School in Kibera at a cost of Ksh 58 million. The Governor also teamed up with Kibra MP, Ken Okoth to launch a similar development at the Shadrack Kimalel Secondary School in the same constituency.

Eliud is also said to be angered by Kidero’s move to give his father’s funeral fundraising a wide berth.