ODM presidential aspirant Jimi Wanjigi says that he is ready for a contest with any challenger seeking the party’s presidential ticket at the National Delegates Conference expected later this year.
Wanjigi said that he was confident that the party’s internal mechanism were sufficiently robust on the basis of which he would win the ticket which was held by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga in 2013 and 2017 General Elections.
The party constitution mandates the National Delegates Conference – which consists of delegates drawn from every ward across the country – to nominate party candidates and pick a presidential flag-bearer every five years. “We are ODM. We know the delegates and we have the numbers to defeat any candidate. We must show internal party democracy in ODM. We hope that sooner, rather than later, we will have the National Delegates Conference,” said Wanjigi.
He also told a Nairobi grassroots leaders meeting that he was ready to take the contest all the way to the end; “Any of you in our sights, the time for change has come and that time is now. It is not tomorrow. This country needs change.”
The Nairobi grassroots leaders meeting under the banner of ‘Nairobi ni Sisi’ gifted Wanjigi a branded Honda N-Box vehicle as they promised to support his voter-hunt throughout Nairobi.
Wanjigi has resolved to popularise ODM in Mt Kenya region, Eastern and the larger Nairobi as he charts a path to becoming the orange party presidential flagbearer in 2022. “The party constitution is clear that the delegates are the face of Kenya. We are popularising Orange everywhere because we know we will get to Kasarani with a majority,” he said.
Wanjigi said that pre-independence heroes won political freedom from colonizers while Kenyans won their second liberation from oppressive one-party dictatorship by passing the 2010 Constitution.
“Those heroes delivered the nation to where it is today. We are at a different phase. This phase is called Economic Liberation. There’s no greater liberation than economic liberation. We had the first liberation at independence and a second liberation with the 2010 Constitution. Now is the time for an economic revolution and that cannot be delivered by yesterday’s warriors,” said Wanjigi.
The aspirant told the meeting that he is aiming at winning the support of the majority of delegates when ODM holds its National Delegates conference later in the year.
