Embu Governor Martin Wambora is perhaps the master of political survival,or is he? As others say, the county boss has the proverbial nine lives of a cat.. He has braved a baptism by fire and came out without a scar.
The Embu County boss has narrated how he has survived politically.
“I don’t know whether to call it nine lives. They could be more. My daughter, Mukami Wambora [citizen TV journalist] has counted 19 challenges I have encountered. And there are others in the civil service she doesn’t know,” he was quoted by The Star.
The Embu Houdini was impeached twice in 2014 by the County Assembly. The first impeachment proceedings were endorsed by the Senate when MPs overwhelmingly voted to send him packing.
At one time, Wambora’s political life appeared to be on the line. The courts, his usual last line of defence, ruled that he should stay away from office.
And yes, Wambora stayed away from his office for a record two months, before the same court gave him back his job.
After he secured his second term win in 2017, then began a protracted legal duel with his political nemesis, former Embu Senator Lenny Kivuti. The election had been close. Wambora beat Kivuti by a paltry 985 votes. The legal battle which began in the High Court stretched for 16 months. Kivuti won the first round when Wambora’s election was nullified by the High Court in February last year. However, he would have the last laugh when the Court of Appeal overturned that decision.
Wambora was to give Kivuti a final staggering political blow after the Supreme Court upheld his victory last week.
“We found no basis upon which to interfere with the appellate court’s decision. The appeal is hereby dismissed,” Justice Mohammed Ibrahim ruled last week, giving Wambora what appeared to be his final triumph over his detractors.
“My Bishop, Bishop Kariuki asked, how come you have not had any health complications? I told him prayers, prayers, prayers. And also, the understanding that I am with the voters,” Wambora said.
According to the county chief, his impeachment was orchestrated by looters who were scheming to fleece county resources.
“I use to hear people swearing that they only need 90 days to make Sh100 million,” Wambora recalled. “With that kind of talk, how can you leave your people to suffer? There was no way I was going to leave.”
In his view, an elective position bestows on the leader huge public expectations, easily throwing up the towel amounts to cowardice and hopeless surrender.
“No way! I would never be remembered for anything… I would not leave the seat. It will never happen. I will be disfranchising my own people. To imagine that I will leave my people in the hand of looters, that gave me the strength of a lion,” he said.
Senators wanted to use him as the sacrificial lamb in a bid to tame governors, he says of his troubles in his first term.