Migori governor, on Wednesday found himself in a hot soup after angry residents forced him to cut short his speech and threatened to stone him.
Obado was speaking at Kegonga, Kuria East over his choice of municipalities that needed upgrade, in a project that was funded by World Bank.
Reports indicate that the governor’s intention to defend his administration’s choice of Awendo, Migori and Rongo as beneficiaries of the sh516 million project was the cause of chaos. In fact, residents of Kegonga accused him of deliberately sidelining the region.
Chaos first erupted when the county head accused Kuria East MP, Marwa Kitayama of using the project to taint his name. He said, “I have tried to explain to my brother (Mr Kitayama) the truth about the World Bank project but he has refused to listen. He wants to incite the Kuria people against me so that they can think Obado is such a bad person.’’
Obado continued, “He is the only one who knows his aim of besmirching my name. He is here and I do not want to speak behind his back.’’
Kitayama then rushed to the podium in a bid to stop Obado from speaking while residents shouted down the governor. Some picked stones, clubs and knobkerries to create more chaos.
The governors attempts to calm down the crowd were unsuccessful during which he was forced to prematurely end his speech and depart abruptly.
Kitayama had accused the county head of sidelining Kuria from the upgrade project. He stated, ‘’ If governor Josephat Nanok of Turkana gave Kakuma refugee camp a municipality, what of Kuria which had a municipality at Kehancha since time immemorial? Then when we demand to know we are accused of playing politics.’’
In January, Kitayama and his counterpart, nominated MP, Dennitah had declared that they would oppose the project if Kuria was not included.
‘’We are not going to allow Migori county to marginalize Kuria region. We cannot understand why the World Bank project is being taken to the Luo side yet Kuria region has got the two biggest municipalities after Migori. Not even one of the municipalities has been considered,” said Kitayama.
World Bank had issued sh28 billion to the Kenya Urban Support Programme that was to be channeled to the 47 counties.
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