Duale says he was part of team that funded Raila's campaign

What you need to know:

  • Aden Duale rubbished the assertion made by Raila Odinga in Garissa last Thursday that the Majority Leader had been picked from obscurity and elders had prevailed upon to support his candidature to become the Member of Parliament for Dujis.
  • The Majority Leader has in recent times taken the role of defending the Jubilee administration against Mr Odinga’s onslaught and was angered by the Cord chief’s remarks during the visit to his political backyard.

National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale has said he was part of the team that funded Cord chief Raila Odinga’s presidential campaign in 2007 and helped him gain a foothold in the North Eastern Province.

Mr Duale rubbished the assertion made by Mr Odinga in Garissa last Thursday that the majority leader had been picked from obscurity and elders had prevailed upon him to support his candidature to become the member of Parliament for Dujis.

“It was we who funded his campaign to the tune of Sh18 million. I have witnesses and I have (records of) transactions,” Mr Duale said on the sidelines of the meeting of the National Assembly’s leadership in Mombasa.

The majority leader has in recent times taken the role of defending the Jubilee administration against Mr Odinga’s onslaught and was angered by the Cord chief’s remarks during the visit to his political backyard.

Mr Duale said the Sh18 million was not inclusive of the cost of food and accommodation for the former prime minister and his entourage at Nomad Palace Hotel in Garissa in the course of the campaign.

He also claimed that Mr Odinga’s wife received bribes in the form of clothes, gold chains and diamonds from women who wanted to be nominated to Parliament through the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

TRANSFORMED BRAND

The Garissa Township MP said that contrary to Mr Odinga’s claim that he lifted him from obscurity, he was part of the team that joined the ODM party leader and transformed his brand.

“I was instrumental in turning Raila Odinga from a Luo leader to a national leader,” Mr Duale said. “I campaigned for Raila Odinga in 2007 in the mosques, at the pulpit.”

He said this happened with the formation of ODM after the referendum in 2005 and that he was one of the northeastern Kenya MPs who enabled Mr Odinga to fold his Liberal Democratic Party and form a party with a national outlook.

Others who brought in sizeable support for Mr Odinga in his bid for the presidency were William Ruto, Najib Balala, Charity Ngilu and Musalia Mudavadi. All of them later fell out with Mr Odinga ahead of the 2013 General Election.

Mr Duale was appointed assistant minister in the coalition government but was sacked along with Mr Ruto after the fallout within ODM.

“In 2009, I fundamentally disagreed with his retrogressive politics,” Mr Duale said. “If Raila Odinga has been building careers of people, why is he losing people at a very fast rate?”

He said the fallout happened after some people within ODM realised that Mr Odinga did not have the interests of the people at heart.