Tension is high at Homa Bay county after it leaked out that deputy governor Hamilton Orata has been sharing incriminating information with anti-graft sleuths against his boss Cyprian Awiti.
Orata has been undergoing sleepless nights plotting on how to take over from the besieged Governor Awiti whose constitutional two terms ends in 2022 but has not been keen on supporting Orata as his possible successor.
The landmark court ruling that governors charged with corruption should stay away from office came as sweet news to the man who is leaving nothing to chance in his determined efforts to take over from the incumbent who is under poor health.
Since Governor Awiti was taken ill, Homa Bay county has witnessed a major spat of drama pitting the governor’s henchmen against his deputy’s camp.
Deputy governor Hamilton Orata
Orata who had gone ahead and formed a tentative cabinet just in case Awiti breathed his last has since been raging with fury over the return of the big man.
Last week when one of the local dailies asked him to comment on his boss’s health status, the deputy governor replied: “Kindly speak to the doctors and the governor’s family on his health, mine is only to deputise him at the county level”.
The infighting has deeply split the county cabinet right down the the middle with county secretary Isaiah Ogwe, CECM finance Nick Koriko and four CECs leading the pro-governor faction christened “The Allies” while Orata and five other CECMs led by Nyawinda in their Tanga Tanga team are chanting anti-Awiti war songs on the other side of the battle line as oppositionists.
In Orata’s dream cabinet, the perceived chief executive officer for water and environment Dickson Nyawinda who was formerly a Shimo La Tewa inmate, was promised the finance docket.
He was heard bragging on how powerful he had become to influence happenings at the county government.
