Wetangula, shrewd cat with 9 political lives

Moses Wetang’ula burst into public limelight after the 1982 coup when the rookie lawyer defended Kenya Air Force servicemen charged with attempting to overthrow President Daniel Arap Moi. For obvious reasons, senior lawyers had given the cases a wide a berth.

While that set him up as an anti-establishment figure, Wetang’ula would in later years become one of President Moi’s lawyers and a trusted Kanu insider. Indeed, it was through Kanu that Wetang’ula entered politics as a nominated Member of Parliament.

In 2002, Wetangula cut links with Kanu and joined Musikari Kombo’s Ford Kenya. He was appointed Foreign Affairs Minister when then President Mwai Kibaki kicked out rebel ODM ministers out of government following the acrimonious banana versus orange constitutional referendum in 2005 which was one by orange side opposed to the proposed constitution. In 2008, Wetang’ula, a combative debater and lawyer, was, together with the late Mutula Kilonzo and Martha Karua, among President Kibaki’s henchmen who were detailed to slug it out with the hard-swinging ODM brawlers - William Ruto, Sally Kosgei and James Orengo.

Fast forward to 2013 and Wetangula was not only a staunch ally of Raila Odinga, whom he fought in 2008, but had severed links with his party leader Musikari Kombo. The two Bukusu leaders would engage in a bruising contest for the Bungoma senatorial race that raised dust all the way to the hallowed chambers of the Supreme Court.

The senator has been mentioned adversely in one or two corruption scandals, including the fraudulent purchase of Embassy land in Tokyo, Japan, for which he ‘stepped aside’ briefly before being cleared and reinstated as Foreign Affairs Minister. He was never charged in a court of law.

Last year, he escaped political death by the skin of his teeth when the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) declined to deregister him as a voter despite findings by an elections appeal court that he bribed voters in 2013.

In 2014, Standard Group driver John Carlson Okello accused the senator of having an inappropriate relationship with his wife, Nancy Kibabi, a nominated Member of Bungoma County Assembly.

Sources, however, tell The Nairobian that at one point, so strong was the bond between Wetangu’la and Ann Waceke that as Cabinet Minister, he stepped into the offices of her employer, an oil company, to intercede when she was dismissed.