DR JAMES GESAMI: DOC­TOR RE­LUC­TANTLY BE­CAME MP

DR. JAMES GESAMI, MP WEST MUGIRANGO / “My wife had been sacked from the govern­ment af­ter about two months and the rea­son we were given is that we did not come from a fam­ily that had po­lit­i­cal sup­port. I could not get a sin­gle politi­cian to come to our aid

The Star (Kenya) - - Front Page - IBRAHIM ORUKO @orukoi

In the 2013 gen­eral elec­tion, West Mugirango MP James Gesami was such an ar­dent sup­porter of the Nyamira County Gov­er­nor John Nya­garama that in his con­stituency the gov­er­nor cam­paigned us­ing the MPs’ elec­toral agents.

How­ever, af­ter both had won their elec­tions, Gesami and Nya­garama fell out over the run­ning of the county’s af­fairs.

Gesami who has an­nounced his in­ten­tion to vie for the county’s gov­er­nor­ship po­si­tion is among the MPs from the county who have in the past crit­i­cised the county’s man­age­ment cit­ing cor­rup­tion and mis­use of re­sources.

“We will not al­low the same mis­take we did in 2013 to hap­pen again in 2017. We sup­ported Nya­garama for the seat un­aware that he will turn our county to be one of the worst run coun­ties in less than four years,” Gesami says.

The MP made the de­ci­sion to vie for gov­er­nor af­ter be­ing per­suaded by his wife, Rachael Gesami, a former Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, and also by youth from the county who ap­proached him and ex­plained the need for change.

Un­known to many peo­ple, from the start Gesami never in­tended to be a politi­cian.

“My wife had been sacked from the govern­ment af­ter about two months and the rea­son we were given is that we did not come from a fam­ily that had po­lit­i­cal sup­port. I could not get a sin­gle politi­cian to come to our aid. We were sim­ply ex­pend­able. When I com­plained, I was trans­ferred from Nairobi to Nyanza as the Pro­vin­cial Di­rec­tor of Health,” he re­calls.

It’s while serv­ing in Nyanza that he started in­ter­act­ing with all kinds of peo­ple as he vis­ited his sick mother at home ev­ery week­end. Dur­ing those week­ends, lo­cals would come to his home ask­ing that he do­nates his car to as­sist in var­i­ous func­tions among them fu­ner­als and wed­dings.

“With time, I saw the sense of go­ing into elec­tive politics so that I could use my po­si­tion to fight for the rights of those mis­treated by pow­ers-that-be like my fam­ily and other poor peo­ple and to also ex­tend my help,” he re­calls.

In the 2002 gen­eral elec­tion, Gesami made his­tory by trounc­ing the cab­i­net min­is­ter Henry Ob­wocha, in one of the great­est elec­toral up­sets that year.

Gesami says that in the last four years, the al­most Sh20­bil­lion that been pumped by the trea­sury into the county has ei­ther gone into pay­ing salaries or into peo­ple’s pock­ets.

“We are among the few coun­ties in Kenya that have no sin­gle ma­jor pro­ject to be proud of. Noth­ing. Zero. If we give the cur­rent gov­er­nor an­other five years of power, it will be Ar­maged­don,” he de­clares.

“IF WE GIVE THE CUR­RENT GOV­ER­NOR AN­OTHER FIVE YEARS OF POWER, IT WILL BE AR­MAGED­DON”

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