Wafula Buke leads a bloodsless coup in ODM, declares himself acting executive director

Wafula Buke declared himself ODM’s acting executive director and claimed that it was the culmination of wide consultations with other ODM directors at the party’s secretariat.

ODM’s director of membership Rosemary Kariuki flanked him during a press conference at the Orange house. Wafula Buke informed journalists that there was no vacuum at the ODM secretariat. Buke took over from Magerer Langat who was unceremoniously ejected from a party meeting last week and forcefully marched out of the orange house by a section of Nairobi county MCAs for allegedly being a mole and leaking confidential party information to the Jubilee coalition.

During the press conference, Wafula Buke insisted that there will be no moles at orange house as long as he is the executive director.

However, Buke’s coup was immediately disowned by the party’s secretary general Pro. Anyang Nyong’o, who announced that Magerer was still in charge at the orange house. Nyongo said that Wafula Buke’s public pronouncement had no bearing on decisions made by the party and ODM as a party would deal with him accordingly. He made this announcement a day after ODM’s national executive committee slapped a Sh 100,000 fine on the 11 MCAs who rough up Magerer on Friday.

In response to Nyong’o, Wafula said that Magerer will never set his foot in the Orange house and termed Prof’s pronouncement as a slip of the tongue. Former Nairobi mayor George Aladwa who was present during the press conference said that him and other Luhya leaders would fully back Wafula and insisted that the seat belonged to ‘them’

The coup attempt by Wabuke and his group occurred even before a probe team established by the party’s NEC to investigate Magerer’s alleged disloyalty got down to work. The party has been trying to enforce loyalty with Odinga challenging dissenting members and those deemed to be too cozy to the jubilee coalition to shape up or shape out.