Fred Matiangi and Raila Odinga
An insider in the Azimio la Umoja camp has come out to reveal how some powerful people in former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government bungled Raila Odinga’s presidential election on August 9.
The insider who spoke to Daily Nation said that Raila Odinga was betrayed by his closest aides.
He claimed that some members of the Azimio secretariat were physically in Azimio but their hearts belonged elsewhere.
The official who requested anonymity refuted media claims that Azimio officials misappropriated funds intended to pay party agents, leaving the camp without agents in polling stations.
“We had a good program for the agents, money was available for them. We had structures. Actually, for the chief agents, we employed lawyers to be the constituency and county chief agents. We had 290 lawyers as constituency chief agents and 47 lawyers as county chief agents, and we had the polling agents,” the official said.
The official further disclosed that the Azimio la Umoja had trained party agents and that each agent was to be paid KSh 5,000.
He claimed that on the day of the August 9 General Election, one of the top officials, a close associate of Odinga, sabotaged the agents’ plan by introducing a fresh list of party agents, despite the fact that the Secretariat had made a down payment of KSh 1,500 to each agent.
“On the eve of the elections, one of the top officials, a close ally of Mr Odinga, messed up the agents’ plan. It was a scenario where you have trained people, let’s say 1,500 in a constituency, then he comes and asks ‘how did you find these people?’.
” Then he gives you a different list and says ‘Work with these people’; and it is hours to the election, you don’t know who they are, you don’t know where they came from and then you are being instructed to send the letters to people who are not trained.” The official said.
This he claims led to Azimio having no àgents in Kisii, Kajiado, Narok, some counties in North-Eastern and Coast.
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