By Bob Ndira Uradi in Bondo Town
A FIGHT broke out at the Bondo rural home of the Finance Assistant Minister Dr. Oburu Oginga in which scores of people sustained minor bodily injuries.
The gathering at the Opoda Bar Opuk rural home of Dr. Oburu Oginga who is the Bondo MP was originally intended for home-coming party meant specifically for the inauguration and endorsement of the longest serving MP’s candidature for the Siaya County Senate seat in the forthcoming general election.
ODM delegates from all the branches within the five parliamentary constituencies of Ugenya, Gem, Alego-Usonga,Bondo,Rarieda an the newly created Uganja constituency which was recently hived of the old Ugenya constituency.
Two MPs were in attendance.They were Eng.Nichola Gumbo
{Rarieda} and Edwin Ochieng’ Yinda [Alego Usonga} together with civic leaders from Bondo and Siaya County Councils. Also in attendance were civic leaders from Bondo, Yala and Ugunja Town Councils.
He gathering turned chaotic after the Siaya ODM County branch Vice chairman Akelo Gwela who was acting as the master of ceremony called and recognized the presence of party delegation from Rarieda constituency. Another delegation of a splinter party branch stood up and insisted that they were de facto delegation and that those whose names had been called were fake and not genuinely elected pay officials.
The group insisted that they must be allowed an opportunity to address the gathering. Gwela was caught up in a catch situation and pleaded with the delegation to be patient and wait patiently as time will come when they will be called to speak. But members of the splinter delegation cold not hear of this and it was at this juncture when things broke loose. The delegates went for each other throat in a free-for-all which lasted for close to 40 minutes.
Other delegates too to their heels and scampered for safety as the puzzled Minister and the two other MPs watched in disbelief of their eyes.
Rarieda MP Eng Nicholas Gumbo too to the podium and started chanting ODM slogans, asking the rowdy party members to calm own.”This is the County in this country which is expected to produce the next President of the Republic of Kenya and therefore we must set good example and cannot afford to fight in this home.”, the MP shouted the loudest.
But the combatants could not hear of this. However, most of them took the MP words serious and slowly calmed down. After Eng Gumbo pleas the fighting stopped.
Chairs flew up across the tent whole tables were turned upside down and used as shield during the melee. The fighting rages on as members of the public fled in all directions.
The seemingly puzzled and shocked Dr. Oburu Oginga took over the microphone and try to appeal for calm in vain. “ I am appealing to you not to embarrass me and my family in my home. I had invited you to come and feast not to fight each other,” Dr Oburu pleaded, but no one heeded his pleas.
Source confided to us that the source of discontent was the leakage made in certain quarters that Dr.Oburu Oginga who has represented the Bondo constituency ever since the death of his father the late freedom fighter Jaramogi Oginga Odinga in 1994 has switched to contest the Senate seat, but it is rumored that the same Odinga family has secretly earmarked one of their own to replace him as the MP for the area in what like the dynastic politics.
In the same rumor it is said that a Mr Ogutu Jaoko who is the national treasurer of COTU{K} is the one tipped by the Odinga family to contest for the Bondo seat. Ogutu is a close member of the same Odingas family. But other rumors’ making the round says that Mrs Ida Raila Odinga would be the one to being fronted by the family to succeed her brother-in-law.
There is a strong feeling among the electorate in Bondo that t was time someone else from another clan and community be chosen to represent the constituency which ha remained the exclusively the preserves of the Odinga family dynasty ever since its inception in 1963.
Bondo constituency is inhabited by people of diverse sub-clans, the Jo-Yimbo from Usenge and Usigu Divisions being the second largest sub-clan, but with others like Jo-Kagwa and several; smaller immigrant sub-clans, there is, however, a strong common feeling is that if Dr. Oburu Oginga has voluntarily chosen to relinquish the seat and go a notch higher by contesting the Senate seat, someone from Yimbo should be allowed to contest the seat in rotation basis as one way of protecting the minority group’s rights of representation.
ODM members in the entire Luo-Nyanza are unanimous that the party leader Raila Amolo Odinga should be voted in to realize his presidential ambition. However, the community is not comfortable with another of the Odingas contesting any other elective position in the region apart from Raila an his elder brother Dr.Oburu Oginga.
The other information making the round that Raila’s youngest sister Ruth Adhiambo who is the managing director of the family business flag the Spectre International, which is managing the Kisumu Molasses would be running for the Kisumu County governor position is not well received. It is viewed in the context that the Odingas are greedy people who wanted to control almost every senior political position in the region. Adhiambo’s candidature is strongly being resisted by the indignants resident of Kisumu County who consider her as an outsider.
Ends