Writes Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City

The Minister for Medical Services Prof.Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o is expected to face one of the stiffest election campaign in his life during the forthcoming ODM party election schedule for April this year.

Gumbe made the announcement at his Kisumu Milimani estate residence on Sunday morning when he summoned this writer and other newsmen.

He said he was responding to the demand of many ODM members countrywide who felt they were now being adequately served,and needed a change of command at the party Orange House headquarters in Nairobi in order to get things moving in the right direction.

He would be challenged for the same position by a man of almost equal strength in the name of Prof. Larry Gumbe, a fellow Luo who hails from Karachuonyo, but was born and raised in Kisumu where his late father Ezra Owiti Gumbe was at one time the Major of the City. Before his accession to the mayoral position the senior Gumbe had served the Kisumu Municipal Council for many years before retirement as the town’s director of social services.

A professor of engineering, Prof Larry Gumbe’s name has been associated with the ODM ever since the days of the NDP and LDP. He was at one time the chairman of the NDP and has always remain in the background as the head of thin-a-tank group in all the parties headed by the Prime Minister Raila Odinga ever since the latter breakaway with the late Michael Kijana Wamalwa after protracted struggle for power in Ford-Kenya.

Prof Gumbe. head the Center for Democracy and Good Governance. an NGO, which has a lot of influence within the ODM hierarchy and has remained the man behind the scene at the ODM headquarters all these years,

Gumbe’s declaration of the intention to contest for the post of the ODM Secretary General came in the wake of unconfirmed rumors making the round that Prof.Nyong’o has fallen out of favor with “Agwambo”

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