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Political activist Okiya Omtatah Okoiti, who was said to be nominated Senator Emma Mbura’s lover in a widely circulated scandalous audio clip has rubbished the allegations as “absolutely false.”
“I have never had an affair with the senator. It’s absolutely false. There is no merit in his allegations at all. It is very wrong to lie about people. He is a reckless talker. It is libelous to propagate such lies,” Omtatah told The Nairobian in reaction to claims by controversial Mombasa-based political activist, Kalinga Mgandi, that Omtatah is among a long string of men who have bedded Mbura.
He claims that Kalinga had earlier made similar allegations against another female politician from the Coast region.
Kalinga has since been arrested and charged for sending the senator abusive audio clips through WhatsApp groups; namely Mombasa Community Forum, Mwahima Tena Tosha 2017, Mwahima Strategic Team and Likoni Constituency Forum.
“This man is angry at Mbura simply because during the elections, he was campaigning for both TNA and Cord. Senator Mbura confronted him and asked why he was purporting to be in TNA, yet he was also on Cord payroll. That must have sparked off the bad blood, because eventually, both Cord and TNA kicked him out,” says Omtatah, who studied philosophy at St Augustine Major Seminary in Bungoma.
But Kalinga, who is out on a cash bail of Sh100,000 told the court that Mbura got him arrested because of a love affair gone sour, and that she is the one who started abusing him on social media when she learnt that he was about to marry a girlfriend he had been living with.
He claims the senator made advances on him when they were both working on a project called Mekatilili Foundation in Likoni, and that his wife left with their seven-year-old daughter when she became aware of their affair. “I was staying in a house in Nairobi Dasia estate near Ngara and the senator used to pay my Sh25,000 monthly rent. I had no business in Nairobi besides her,” claims Kalinga. He added that he even used to pick the senator from the airport and help her run errands around town in his vehicle.
“She might win the war today, but I have messages that can prove we used to communicate,” Kalinga revealed.
In the explosive but scandalously audio clips, Kalinga claims that the senator was a loose husband-snatcher, allegations that mheshimiwa Mbura scoffed at while dismissing Kalinga as a thin ugly man with chipped lips who is way below her class.
The senator told the court that she is a respectable mother, leader and wife who is guided by morals and respects herself and the public. She said that the whole circus arose because her political detractors were not happy that she supported Jubilee during the Malindi by-election.
The senator says she first met Kalinga at a land activism forum in Likoni, and that he only came to her house during Nairobi Senator Mike Mbuvi Sonko’s dad’s funeral. “I invited Kalinga and some women from Mombasa to my home in Nairobi during the funeral of Senator Sonko’s father and that is when he first set foot in my house,” says Mbura, who also denied renting an apartment for Kalinga in Parklands. She claimed that she earns very little money to afford an extra rent payment.
“I am servicing a Sh25 million mortgage, a Sh6 million car loan and recently took a loan for another car worth Sh3 million. So, where would I get the money to pay rent for Kalinga?” posed Mbura.
