Deputy President William Ruto visited Luo Nyanza for the first time ever, and guess who welcomed him? Well it was no other governor has waded controversy in the Nyanza region more than Okoth Obado.
The Migori governor who is currently facing murder charges in court and was recently released on bail after spending 34 days at the Industrial Area Police Remand Prison, will go down in history as the first governor to welcome William Ruto to Luo Nyanza.
The DP has never been to the region. Previously, he only visited Kisii, Nyamira, Kuria West and Kuria East, the only Nyanza areas that in the past leaned towards Jubilee Party.
But as he makes an onslaught on the 2022 Presidency, Ruto has decided that his campaign will be based on uniting Kenyans, in the spirit of the building bridges initiative, so it was only a matter of time before he visited the Nyanza region.
And he arrived on Monday, with his trademark bag of goodies for locals, launching roads, church Harambees and hospitals.
Commissioned the Masara – Suna- Kehancha and Awendo- Mariwa – Oyani roads, Nyabisawa, Migori County, totalling 67.5 kilometres. pic.twitter.com/UXymIJXh6U
— William Samoei Ruto (@WilliamsRuto) November 5, 2018
But as the succession politics continue to take centre stage, so does the question of who should be Ruto’s running mate?
On Sunday, Luhya leaders told Ruto that they would support his presidential bid but wanted him to choose one of them as running mate.
But what if the DP does the unthinkable and chooses Obado as running mate? Well this is a wild card but it will resonate well with his dream of building a united country without political bias.
Obado, is currently the most famous governor in Kenya thanks to the mysterious death of his pregnant girlfriend Sharon Otieno.
But in politics, publicity is publicity and Obado has plenty of that. Away from Sharon’s murder, the governor is a political heavyweight in Nyanza.
In 2013, Obado was elected the first governor of Migori against all odds, after defecting from the most powerful party in the region – ODM.
Contesting on a small known People’s Democratic Party (PDP), he went on to trounce ODM’s candidate Oyugi Akong’o, even after the High Court ordered a recount.
Just before last year’s elections, Obado returned to ODM and was received by party leader Raila Odinga at a public rally, only to walk into a storm as local party leaders questioned his loyalty.
He went ahead to beat Ochillo Ayacko, who was the party favorite, in the nominations. Ayacko defected and vied as an independent candidate but still lost to Obado. He filed a petition in High Court and lost that too. He went to the Court of Appeal, which threw out the case.
Obado has once again broken ranks with ODM after he rejected the direct nomination of Ayacko as the party’s candidate for the Migori Senator by-election slated for next month.
Friends and foes concede that Obado is a political schemer with widespread grassroots support, having been a farmer and teacher for many years.
Should Ruto take Obado as running mate?