Raila to Wetangula: Carry your own cross

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has dismissed claims by Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula that he engineered his ouster as Senate Minority leader.

In a statement to newsrooms, Mr. Odinga, through his spokesman Dennis Onyango, termed Wetangula’s accusations as “dishonest.”

“We find Wetangula’s sentiments to be dishonest, frivolous and evasive. They are meant only to whip up emotions and sympathy over problems of the Senator’s own making,” said Onyango.

Wetangula in an interview with a local daily was reported saying that Mr Odinga mobilised ODM allied senators for a meeting during which the finer details of his removal were discussed and the final go-ahead given.

Odinga’s spokesman denied the claims saying the opposition leader tried to save the Bungoma Senator from being ejected from the influential senate seat.

“As head of NASA, Mr. Odinga did all he could to save Mr.Wetangula’s minority leadership, including instructing the Coalition’s CEO Mr. Norman Magaya to write to the Senate to retain Mr. Wetangula as Minority leader,” read part of the statement.

“Mr. Wetangula knows the facts, and they are as follows: he was rejected by senators from all the NASA parties, not only ODM. To date, none of the NASA senators has come out to support Mr. Wetangula. That kind of rejection is unprecedented and pointed to a deep rooted problem between him and his colleagues. ”

While Mr. Wetangula claims that he was humiliated before Odinga during a meeting with NASA Senators, Mr. Onyango says the lawmakers only laid bare the issues they had with the FORD-Kenya party leader.

“The problems came out clearly in a meeting called by Mr. Odinga to broker understanding between the senator and his colleagues. The senators accused Mr Wetangula, in his presence, of being aloof, selfish, arrogant and having the tendency to impose decisions on them under the pretext that they were directives from the Summit, which often was not the case,” read the statement.

On Saturday, April 7, Mr. Wetangula announced that he had cut links with Odinga over what he described as betrayal.

The four NASA principals have been at loggerheads on issues of common interest, with the situation having been compounded by the unity pact signed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr. Odinga.

Wetangula, Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi dismissed the Kenyatta-Odinga truce saying the meeting was not done in the interest of all Kenyans but only two individuals.