We would like to confirm to our party members, supporters and the country at large that one of our members of staff, Mr. Benson Musungu, the Director of Youth Affairs tested positive for COVID-19.
Last week on Monday, Mr. Musungu developed fever which degenerated into severe pain in the body joints. He sought medical attention at the Agakhan Satellite Clinic at Prestige Plaza along Ngong Road from where he was referred to the main hospital in Parklands.
He was first diagnosed with pneumonia causing him to be admitted. Further tests were run after he developed more complications. The results tested Covid-19 positive. He was then taken into the ICU facility for proper care.
We are pleased to announce that he is receiving the best possible medication and responding well. His immediate family, i.e. wife and daughter were tested and results turned negative.
However, we would like to urge anyone who interacted with Mr. Musungu in the last 14 days prior to Wednesday 3rd June 2020 to volunteer for testing to avoid further spread of the disease. As the national secretariat we had already taken steps at the advent of the pandemic to protect our staff. Indeed as you can see we maintain only a skeleton staff with the bulk of our employees working from home for the past 3 months. There is therefore no cause for alarm and little chance that any other members of staff of the secretariat is infected. We have out of abundance of caution arranged for enhanced measures including fumigation of the entire office.
We continue to urge our staff, members and the public in general to take precaution, ensure minimal physical interaction and adhere to the safety regulations the government through the Ministry of Health is putting in place to help curb the spread of the virus. Let’s STAY SAFE.
On the deteriorating relationship between arms of government
The Party notes with concern the deteriorating relations between the arms of government and specifically the Judiciary and the executive as demonstrated by the CJs address to the country yesterday.
It is said that when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. The increasingly public spat between these two arms of government continues to hinder access to justice for many Kenyans and doesn’t board well for our democracy. As a party we will always stand for an independent Judiciary and defend the sanctity of Court orders as the foundation of the rule of Law.
We ourselves are holders of one of those court orders the Chief Justice spoke of amounting to close to 6B shillings which Treasury and Parliament are yet to comply with. We understand those who hold there should be no dialogue or discussion over constitutional dictates but we also believe there are more ways than one to skin a cat.
We urge the President to rise to the occasion and seek out the chief justice with a view to unlocking the current impasse on appointment of judges. In fact as the President and our Party leader demonstrated reaching out to even those you bitterly disagree with is not weakness especially when done in the national interest.
We further urge that the same vigor applied in ensuring payment of pending bills at the county level be applied in ensuring that all debts arising from court judgments are cleared for the many Kenyans who have been waiting for justice to finally get it.
On Claims by Hon. Ayub Savula
In African culture, there is consensus that a drunkard and a loose mouth is never one to be trusted with strategy at whatever level. In Luhya culture specifically, the process of initiation opens up initiates to a world of confidentiality, measured speech and brutal honesty.
On this basis alone, there are no circumstances under which ODM and/or any of its leaders would entrust a coup, in the unlikely event that such a plot existed, to the very pedestrian political abilities and loose tongue of Lugari MP Ayub Savula.
Indeed, as the dominant political movement in Western Kenya, ODM has no compelling reason to plan a coup in Amani National Congress against Musalia Mudavadi. We reiterate that the stated Policy of the ODM Party is that of non-interference in the internal workings of other political parties because as you all know we have issues of our own as we strive to perfect ourselves.
We have stated countless times that Musalia Mudavadi is a one-gear lorry hurtling down a hill unaided, on a long-term self-destruct mode, that has never needed the assistance of Rt Hon Raila Odinga or ODM, to crash into oblivion.
Left to his own devices, Mudavadi is a round-the-clock coup plot against himself, simply by his uninspiring disposition, political inertia and inexplicable affinity for bad choices. Given the millions of choices available on the political landscape, it is more exciting for ODM to sit back and watch Mudavadi send himself into political oblivion, rather than create a weak martyr out of him by plotting his overthrow.
The one thing Savula and Mudavadi share, that may inform their incessant outbursts against ODM, must be their new found love for easy funds from the bottomless corruption pit in Sugoi.
Knowing Savula, we will forgive him for today, since we can’t tell if he spoke on one of those rare occasions when he is sober. However, we cannot fail to remind him that politics of the ledger, where his lips speak for the highest bidder, is not our brand. Our party is a large institution currently trying to help deal with national issues, and we take exception to being dragged to the level of village parties that are only now starting to reach the 1952 tribal unity stage, making it unfair for us to have to bridge the 68 year gap to their level.
We in ODM pride ourselves in having the largest pool of leadership talent including those ready to continue the good work by our DPL Wycliffe Oparanya as Kakamega County governor. Ayub Savula is not even on our radar as a one of the possible successors of Governor Oparanya and any claims otherwise are but figments of his imagination. We challenge Savula to reveal the senior official of ODM he alleges approached him with the Coup Plot.
Finally, we would like to point out to both Savula and Mudavadi that if the members of the village operation they call a party have seen it fit to dislodge them from their positions, they must carry their own cross and leave us out of it. We know it is fashionable to blame ODM for all their shortcomings but to constantly cry about another man in your own house is to reach ludicrous new lows.”
Edwin Sifuna
Secretary General
Nice to hear, in fact the NASA coalition should just be disbanded