Reports Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City.

The outspoken and highly polished Secretary General of the Orange Democratic Movement {ODM} is facing political dilemma with uncertain future.

Prof. Nyong’o, who is the Minister for Medical Services and the ODM MP for Kisumu Rural, is believed to be the closest political associate of the Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga and the party’s principal spokesman is facing stiffest opposition in both his party’s position and in any future elective post.

Rumors and speculations making the rounds in Kisumu City and its environs have it that the Kisumu Rural MP is currently contemplating the idea of switching from his current parliamentary seat so that he could run for the Kisumu County Senate seat during the impending general elections.

Local political pundits, however, are quick to say that the move would be a big blow if not political suicide for the Professor of economics and political science. They are predicting that such a move would bring an abrupt and premature end to his political career.

He will definitely be no match to the likes of the flamboyant and populist Eng.Maxwll Otieno Odongo who is outgoing and interacts freely with the electorates.

This is so considering the names and characters of individual personalities within Kisumu County who have already expressed their intention to contest the same seat. “Unless Raila Odinga comes to his rescue Prof. Nyong’o would not make to the Senate in a fair and transparently conducted elections,” remarked one observer in Kisumu who requested his anonymity.

Leading the pack of the half a dozen or so aspirants for the Kisumu County Senate seat is the wealthy industrialist and hotelier Eng.Maxwell Otieno Odongo who is a Nairobi based businessman, but hails from Ahero in Nyando district. Also in the race for the same seat is the Nairobi based quantity surveyor James Ocholla Ogoda, who hails from Nyakach, but now a resident of Muhoroni settlement scheme in Muhoroni district. Ogoda is the former chairman of Gor Mahia Football Club.

Both Eng. Otieno Odongo and Ocholla Ogoda had started their campaign for the senate seat in earnest immediately the new constitution was promulgated by President Mwai KIbaki, but the campaign has since slowed down

The latest entry is the man who in 1992 beat the former Kisumu MP, the late Job Henry Onyango Omino, hands down during the Ford-Kenya preliminaries. But he was denied his victory by the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who headed the party at the time, in favor of Omino Prof.Jimmy Ageng’o. He hails from Kolwa in KisumuTown East constituency, but originally from Kisumo Korando in Kisumu Town West constituency.

Prof Ageng’o boastingly said that he was the old man in the trade, and would teach his rivals a good lesson that they will live to regret.

After loosing the 1992 election, Ageng’o went back to the US for further studies, and thereafter has been associated with various teaching jobs at the various universities in Africa. Until very recently he was teaching at the University of Mozambique in Maputo. But he has returned home joined Moi University at its constituent college at Kabianga in Kericho County.

Jimmy Ageng’o, together with James Orengo, Paul Muite, Raila Odinga Michael Kijana Wamalwa and Gitobu imanyara, were the group of youthful politicians who in 1990s coined the word “Young Turks” and launched it as a pressure group, which gave sleepless nights to the retired President Daniel Arap Moi and his monolithic KANU one party system.

Ageng’o said in Kisumu this week that he could still marshal the support from the residents in the same fashion as he did in 1992. This is because the then Kisumu Town has now been splinted into three different parliamentary constituencies like Kisumu Town East, Kisumu City Central and Kisumu Town West.

Prof. Nyong’o is also being challenged in his position as the ODM Secretary-General by an equally experienced and credible personality by the name of Prof.Larry Gumbe, who a week ago was endorsed by public acclamation to contest the position by a huge crowd of enthusiastic crowd of ODM members at a public rally held at the Kendu-Bay Show ground in North Rachuonyo district, Homa-Bay County.

Gumbe, who is the chairman of the Multiparty Democracy Movement, an NGO, is not a newcomer to the ODM politics. He had previously held the same position in both the NDP and LDP before the two parties were transformed to the Orange party.

In the position of the Kisumu County governor, Jack Ranguma, a former senior KRA top official, appeared to be a one man lonely contestant. No candidate of substantial stature has so far come out to declare interest in this important seat. May be they are still buying time to avoid being pestered by the electorates, and yet there is still plenty of time.

Prof.Nyongo’, whose Kisumu Rural constituency was recommended as one of those areas to be splinted, under the auspices of the defunct Interim Independent Boundary Commission headed by the former Vihiga MP Andrew Ligale with some parts to be rejoined with the Kisumu Town West, is said to be facing lean times.

His political future is said to be too bleak, and even within the realigned constituency, which will only cater for members of his Seme community, he is not a popular MP. He is being accused of dismal performance as an MP at the constituency level, being mean and inaccessible to the electorate.

Pundits maintain that even if he chooses to defend his parliamentary seat, he won’t make again to the August House. He is said to have lost touch with the electorate, and his political lifeline and chances for survival for the future now lays in the hand of the party supreme Raila Odinga

The man whose star is flying high for the Kisumu Senate position is Eng. Otieno Odongo He belonged to the largest Jo-Kano sub-clan whose political influence has spread widely into the three administrative districts of Nyando, Muhoroni and Kisumu Town East

The engineer-cum-lawyer is credited for having established many businesses and industries in the region in which close to 200 people got employed. His businesses span from posho mills in both Ahero and Muhoroni, to large scale sugar cane farming in Kibos, an engineering firm which is carrying out consultant work in Kenya and other countries in Africa and beyond. He is also running the Homa-Bay Tourist Hotel, which he bought from the Kenya Tourist Development Authority and another medium size hotel, which is located at the posh Milimani estate in Kisumu City and a rice mill in Ahero plus many others. On top of all these, he is the Managing Director of his business flagship Otieno Odongo and Partners Engineering Consultancy Company with its headquarters in Nairobi.

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