This archive report was first published on 10 December 2019.
Onyango Oloo, the ousted Kisumu County Assembly Speaker, has vowed to appeal to ODM leader Raila Odinga to save his seat after the Employment and Labour Court upheld his impeachment on December 10, 2019.
The court ruling dealt a significant blow to Oloo's tenure as Speaker, which began in 2017. He was impeached by 42 Kisumu County Assembly members, representing about 75 percent of the ward reps, on September 18, 2019.
Oloo's impeachment followed his arrest order by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Hajji, over corruption charges related to the Lake Basin Mall tendering. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) investigations revealed that the cost of the Lake Basin Mall was inflated from Sh 2.5 billion to Sh4.1 billion.
Despite the court ruling, Oloo remains defiant, stating, "I will certainly appeal to Raila because he gave me this Speaker's seat in his own wisdom and no court can take it away from me."
It remains to be seen whether Raila's intervention will yield any fruit, given his commitment to the war against graft. Critics, however, note that the war on corruption is selective, and Oloo's case may be an exception.
