Siaya Senator James Orengo has told off ANC’s Musalia Mudavadi over claims that ODM party leader, Raila Odinga, was forced into the March 2018 handshake with President Uhuru Kenyatta by mounting pressure from the Western powers.
Speaking on Thursday morning, the Siaya senator termed Musalia’s claims as baseless adding that the former Nasa principal was being economical with the truth and that everything he was saying was just a factual misinterpretation.
The lead counsel also revealed that he, together with Raila, had their Visas cancelled by the United Kingdom shortly after the swearing-in ceremony of Raila Odinga as the People’s President in 2018.
However, Orengo added that days later after the handshake, their Visas were restored.
Contrary to Mudavadi’s claims, Orengo revealed that it was only the two Visas, (Orengo and Raila’s) that were cancelled and not many belonging to Nasa members as insinuated.
While admitting there were pressures from all corners of the country, Orengo maintained that Raila and ODM’s leadership at large never yielded to the said pressures.
“I think Musalia is being economical with the truth and everything he has said is a factual misinterpretation. As far as I know, there were pressures from all sides and corners of the country but ODM never yielded to those pressures,” asserted Orengo.
The senator added that the handshake was not as a result of pressure but just a voluntary move by Raila after a lot of thinking and consultations.
He also refuted claims that ODM took the handshake as a party’s affair saying there were wide consultations involving all the Nasa principals before decisions were arrived at.
Orengo’s response comes two days after Musalia Mudavadi revealed, through his book, that the handshake between Uhuru and Raila in 2018 was as a result of pressure from Western powers that had embarked on a visa cancellation drive against key members of Nasa and their families.
Musalia also claimed that the March 2018 handshake between the two leaders had been a very closely guarded secret which was kept off other Nasa principals by Odinga.
“There was not even the slightest hint that anything of this kind could be going on. The Handshake on Friday, 9, March (2018), between the two gentlemen, therefore, came as a total surprise to me,” read part of Mudavadi’s memoir.
In a tell-it-all memoir titled Musalia Mudavadi: Soaring Above The Storms of Passion, the former deputy premier also disclosed that there was no unanimity in the move by Nasa, which had controversially lost the August 2017 presidential election to Jubilee’s Uhuru, to pull out of the repeat poll ordered for by the Supreme Court.