Kenya Kwanza Alliance presidential candidate William Ruto’s close ally and perennial Borabu parliamentary contestant Patrick Osero is a marked man in the forthcoming general election following revelations that he navigated his way into the inner circle of the Azimio la Umoja One – Kenya Coalition party camouflaging as an Orange Democratic Movement candidate. Investigations by your favourite Weekly Citizen have revealed that the man ODM gave a ticket as its candidate under the guise of an ODM political sheep, has turned out to be a United Democratic Alliance political sympathiser in the Azimio flock.
Patrick Osero
Osero has contested the Borabu parliamentary seat four times through different political outfits, losing terribly to his opponents. In all the four attempts, he has always associated himself with the Ruto camp until in the last few months to the elections when he jumped ship to Raila Odinga’s ODM to have the Borabu constituency electorate to vote for him as their Azimio candidate. Until recently, he was a leading Ruto grassroots mobiliser in Nyamira county helping the DP establish UDA structures in the county only to jump ship from Ruto’s UDA to ODM where he is alleged to have arm-twisted the Orange House top officials to hand him the party’s ticket instead of Kambi Nyandoro who had been in ODM for over three years and had closely worked with the ODM national treasurer Timothy Bosire to build the party in Nyamira county.
Kambi Nyandoro
Kambi who hails from the settlement scheme, is popular among the electorate of Esise and Nyansiongo wards respectively leaving Osero holding on to pockets of supporters in Mekenene ward. Having been shortchanged by the ODM top brass during the party primaries, Kambi, a gifted ground mobiliser and well-resourced politician, took solace in running as an independent candidate. Alongside Osero and Kambi is another Azimio One-Kenya Coalition (Wiper party) candidate Jared Siso alias Ekearamba, a former executive director of Wiper party and University of Nairobi lecturer who is equally set to give his opponents a run for their money. Ekearamba hails from the populous Kiabonyoru subcounty whose electorate naturally vote as a bloc. It constitutes three clans of Abasaragei, Bogesumi and Bonyarurande clans. Ekearamba comes from the dominant Bosaragei clan, giving him a serious political launching pad in the coming elections.
Timothy Bosire
Based on this clan numerical strength, Ekearamba has received an overwhelming endorsement from Borabu Council of Elders, professionals, teachers’ unions- Knut and Kuppet, a number of religious leaders, youth leaders, women and traders in the area. It is against this background the Azimio-One Kenya coalition principal Kalonzo Musyoka in his recent visit to the constituency expressed confidence in his candidature and asked the area electorate to consider voting him as their next MP under the Azimio umbrella. A shrewd political schemer, Osero has tactfully endeared himself to voters. A senior state officer from the area is backing Osero. In fact, Osero is using the association to reap from the officer’s goodwill and have him voted as the area’s next MP in the August polls.
Ben Momanyi
Following this happenings and political moves, the Azimio-OKA brigade from the county led by Timothy Bosire have opted to distance themselves from Osero despite the fact that Borabu constituency is an Azimio-OKA leaning constituency. The Borabu settlement scheme constituency voters are now divided almost evenly between Kambi, an independent candidate, and Siso. Other candidates like Sonko Rogena are said to be political light weights in the constituency. The constituency, which is cosmopolitan in Nyamira county, has two subcounties of Borabu – a sparsely populated settlement scheme drawing its inhabitants from all the Gusii ancestral clans in Kisii and Nyamira counties and Kiabonyoru subcounty which is densely populated with Abasaragei that is the single most largest clan in the constituency. Kiabonyoru is referred to as reserve or the countryside of Borabu constituency because of its poor roads network and other facilities despite having one of their own, Ben Momanyi has been area MP for two consecutive terms since 2013 to date.
