Pamoja African Alliance (PAA) leaders, Tuesday, launched a scathing attack on the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Party and its leader, Raila Odinga, over the economic woes bedeviling the Coast region.
In an unprecedented charm offensive to deprive the Orange Party and its leader of the support it has enjoyed in the region in the past, the leaders urged voters to reject the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Alliance presidential candidate, for allegedly being insensitive to the region’s needs.
PAA Party Leader, Amason Kingi and Party Spokesman, Lucas Baya Maitha, said the ODM Party Leader had oppressed the people of Kilifi and the Coast region in general, by forcing ODM Members of the National Assembly and Senate, to support bills whose implementation would be detrimental to the region.
They painted Mr. Raila as an ungrateful beneficiary of the region’s political magnanimity, by allegedly refusing to consider its leaders in political appointments and failing to fight for the revival of collapsed industries such as the cashew nuts and bixa industries in Kilifi and Kwale counties.
Kingi said the former Prime Minister has been only giving lip service to the residents of the Coast region just to win elections, after which all appointments and other economic benefits are channeled elsewhere, especially to Luo Nyanza.
“No other person has fought and campaigned for ODM and Raila like me, but now I say enough is enough. We have not come here to drum up support for ODM and Baba, but we have come here to bury them,” he said.
He claimed that after the 2017 General Elections in which ODM clinched the gubernatorial position, all the Parliamentary seats in Kilifi County and a majority of Members of County Assembly (MCAs), Mr. Odinga nominated MCAs from other regions and left out locals residents.
He claimed that the ODM Party Leader had looked the other way when bills oppressive to the region were being passed in Parliament (National Assembly and Senate), following his handshake with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Kingi said PAA had decamped from the Azimio coalition, after Raila refused to accede to the party’s demands concerning the revival of the collapsed industries, the land question and the revitalization of the Port of Mombasa, whose operations they claimed had been adversely affected by the establishment of dry ports in Nairobi and Naivasha.
Kingi said the region had been sidelined by successive governments because it lacked a political voice since residents have been embracing political outfits with origins from other regions, and expressed the need for the residents to embrace home-grown parties, for them to be heard at the national cake-sharing table.
He said other regions had formed their own political parties and partnered with others to form coalitions in order to fight for their people and wondered why Coast residents were still enthusiastically supporting parties from other regions.
He said his PAA had agreed to form a coalition with the Kenya Kwanza Alliance because Deputy President William Ruto had agreed to sign an agreement with the Party, which he said had listed demands, among them the land question and the revival of local industries.
He said Ruto had committed in writing an agreement to buy land being occupied by squatters, with a view to issuing ownership documents for the squatters, thus stoping the ever-increasing eviction incidences in Kilifi and other parts within the region.
Similar sentiments were made by Maitha, Magarini Member of Parliament (MP), Michael Thoya Kingi and Nominated Senator, Christine Zawadi, and Kilifi Senatorial candidate Ben Chilumo Kai, who urged the electorate in the region to vote in PAA gubernatorial, National Assembly, Senate, Woman Representative and MCA candidates in the August 9, 2022 polls.
They urged them to elect Deputy President and United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Presidential candidate, William Samoei Ruto, as president “since he agreed to sign an agreement with PAA and is unlikely to renege on the promises, since the agreement is binding.”
In the coalition agreement signed between PAA and Kenya Kwanza on May 8, 2022, Mr. Kingi will become the Senate Speaker should Dr. Ruto win the Presidency on condition that the party delivers at least 50 percent of the Presidential votes to Dr. Ruto.
Kenya Kwanza also agreed to support PAA to clinch the Malindi, Magarini, Rabai, Ganze and Kaloleni Parliamentary seats during the campaigns, a promise that has already been broken since a number of Kenya Kwanza allied parties, including UDA, have fielded candidates in all Constituencies in the County.
