Senior Counsel James Aggrey Bob Orengo has seen it all, in so far as political gerrymandering is concerned. In 1978 at the age of 24 he was already an MP and the only one to be elected to the August House without inheriting the legacy of a popular political forebearer.
Orengo has withered the storm of saba-saba and the second post-independence liberation. He has done this while, all the time, holding his head high in jurisprudential circles, standing out as a meritorious Senior Counsel, one who earned his stripes without patronage.
On Friday 26 April a post attributed to the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission EACC CEO Twalib Abdallah Mbarak claimed that the agency will be coming for the Governor of a county who is a lawyer.
This threat is not new. Though it’s not in the public domain the EACC has conducted numerous raids on the Executive offices and even homes of high ranking officials of the Siaya County Government.
Despite widespread claims of corruption these raids have yielded next to nothing.
It is in the public domain that in February 2023 the EACC promised to institute an inquiry into KES 480,000,000 million that allegedly went missing from the coffers of Siaya County Government in the run-up to the 2022 elections. James Aggrey Bob Orengo was not the Governor when these funds went missing.
Lately the EACC came up with a list of 10 counties in Kenya leading with cases of corruption and even leaked the name of an official in the Treasury Department of the Siaya County Government who had misappropriated KES 18,000,000! The EACC then promised an immediate swoop on officers of those counties. Yes, there have been arrests here and there as in the case of Marsabit County governor.
However, nothing has come up with investigations on Siaya.
In the evening of Friday 26 April, Governor Orengo’s new press director Mr Victor Okoth Marende issued a statement challenging Twalib Abdallah Mbarak to bring up the charges and stop appearing as if his claims were mere publicity . Branding Mbarak’s utterances as reckless, Marende called for a sober approach to the issue of fighting corruption.
Without mincing words Marende threw the gauntlet to EACC — stop barking, bite!
Marende has seized the bull by the horns, unlike his predecessor, and is not shying away from publicity.
If there is no basis for the unwarranted and sensational attacks on the County Government of Siaya then the name of James Aggrey Bob Orengo should not be dragged into mud.
Whoever is doing this forgets that James Aggrey Bob Orengo is the oldest surviving member of the seven bearded sisters and he has defied more than three regimes.
If this is the stuff that he is made of, then Victor Okoth Marende is proving to have more grit than initially suspected.
As for anyone who thought Governor Orengo cows at a fight, you got it wrong; he thrives out of it.
Let’s see EACC bring it on!
DalanewsKe
Editorial Saturday 27 April 2023
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