Spy secrets: VP aides fired over spying claims

Two aides of Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka have been sacked, as the silent war between the VP and Prime Minister Raila Odinga burst into the open over allegations of spying.

Mr Fredrick Muteti, a long-serving political aide to Mr Musyoka, and lately a personal assistant of Nairobi Metropolitan Development minister Mutula Kilonzo, and Mr Martin Mulwa, the VP’s personal assistant in charge of events, were accused of passing party secrets to Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

Mr Muteti was shown the door for allegedly spying for the PM while Mr Mulwa was accused of passing the party’s classified information to Transport assistant minister John Harun Mwau, a close ally of Mr Odinga and his point man in Ukambani.

Both sides are trading accusations over who instigated the spying games.

A top ODM-K official who did not want to be named said that for some time now, the PM has been sponsoring people “to cause trouble” for Mr Musyoka.

“Why is Mr Odinga trying to undermine the Vice-President in his home turf?” the official asked. “The VP has not sponsored anyone to undermine Mr Odinga in his stronghold.”

On the sackings, Mr Musyoka’s spokesman, Mr Kaplich Barsito, on Friday said Mr Muteti was working directly under Mr Kilonzo and the minister was the best placed person to comment.

“If he has been fired, it’s for reasons best known to the minister, not the VP,” he said.

On the spying allegations, Mr Barsito said relations between the VP and Mr Odinga were cordial. According to him, the two often consult on various government issues.

“There’s no mutual suspicion at a political level. However, there are people in ODM-K who feel that the so-called rebellion by two MPs has the PM’s hand in it,” he said.

Mr Odinga’s spokesman, Mr Salim Lone, dismissed the spying allegations and described them as “bizarre”.

He said the VP and the PM were serving the same Government and there was no reason for Mr Odinga to hire people to spy on Mr Musyoka.

“If this allegation is being made, it is downright bizarre. The Vice-President and the Prime Minister are serving in one government; there is no reason at all for the Prime Minister to plant spies on the Vice-President,” he said.

Investigations

However, two weeks of investigations by the Saturday Nation pieced together a web of intrigue between the parties, which resulted in the two officials exit.

It also emerged that the mutual suspicion and spying games have been going on for some time. Mr Muteti and Mr Mulwa are said to have found themselves embroiled in the murky politics between the two camps.

The latest round of political wars burst into the open after the Vice-President suspected that confidential information about ODM-K was finding its way to the PM’s office.

He decided to act and gathered evidence of conversations between his aides and highly placed people on the ODM side.

All this was happening at a time when Mr Musyoka and Mr Mwau were embroiled in a controversy over a planned overseas trip for a group of Ukambani councillors.

The trip, which is being sponsored by Mr Mwau, was regarded by Mr Musyoka’s camp as an attempt to undermine the VP. They also saw Mr Odinga’s hand in the scheme.

It is understood that Mr Mwau, a former CID officer and a police sharpshooter, had employed his own intelligence agents to penetrate the VP’s inner circle.

There have also been accusations of some people in ODM-K taping conversations involving their bosses and handing the tapes to the ODM camp.

One source said that after gathering evidence of the alleged infiltration, the VP summoned Mr Kilonzo, the ODM-K secretary-general, and Mr Muteti to a meeting in his office at Chungwa House, where he revealed what he knew.

Mr Kilonzo then suspended Mr Muteti on the VP’s advice. He was also asked to resign immediately from his party position.

According to a party MP privy to the goings on, Mr Musyoka had complained to Mr Kilonzo in the past that Mr Muteti was talking to ODM people and rebel ODM-K MPs who have defied the VP.

Efforts to get Mr Kilonzo to respond to the allegations failed on Friday.

Both Mr Muteti and Mr Mulwa confirmed this week that the VP had lost confidence in them over the alleged spying missions but denied any wrongdoing.

Mr Mwau said all has not been well between the two Orange camps. Mr Davies Musau, an aide of Mr Mwau, claimed they had evidence of sinister plots by people close to the VP.

“The two (Mr Muteti and Mulwa) have been sacrificed; they are probably innocent of the charges facing them from their party leaders,” he said.

Speaking in his ministry of Transport offices in Nairobi on Wednesday, Mr Mwau said he could not sit back and allow people to plan to destroy him politically.

“When they started it, little did they know that we had the resources and ability to dismantle their plans, we simply employed counter intelligence manoeuvres that made their initiatives look amateurish,” he boasted.

“If they think that they can have Mwau in a cage, they are mistaken. I have the capability of collecting information from any angle and then dealing with that information appropriately.”

Spying allegations

Asked to comment on the spying allegations, Mr Muteti said he had talked to Mr Odinga on many occasions because they were in the same government.

Mr Mulwa said he had met Mr Mwau once this year by chance at the InterContinental hotel in Nairobi.

“We were seated by the swimming pool sometimes last month in a group when he passed by. He stopped and joined us, we had a chat which had nothing to do with spying,” he said.