Suba South MP and ODM Chairman John Mbadi is trailing his main competitors in Homa Bay gubernatorial race.
As he gets desperate, the three-time elected ODM MP has taken a shocking path to the bottom. Mbadi who is erstwhile a decent politician has taken to attacking his opponents using vile language and outright insults.
His campaign has become a theatre of insults and make-believe stories as ODM nomination deadlines near, pointing to the difficulties he is facing with Homa Bay electorates who are questioning his 15-year record in Suba South, with billions in CDF.
Because Mbadi cannot account for his Ksh 100 million annually for 15 years, his campaign has become a theatre of distraction and entertainment.
Mbadi has accused all his competitors of graft, claiming he is better suited to run the county efficiently. He claims, without providing any evidence, that the personal investments of his competitors are proceeds of corruption, a line he has carried from national politics where ODM has spent years accusing Deputy President William Ruto of graft because of massive Ruto investments across the country.
In Kenyan politics, wild claims are based on heresy. In Luo politics, where heresy is the mainstay of politics, the more wild your falsehoods are, the more excitement you generate. Mbadi is playing this manufactured Luo psychology to dirty his opponents.
Read: Luo Nyanza Big Names in Political Battles of their lives
No-one stopped Mbadi from investing in Homa Bay. He claims he has earned millions during his public service life. No one knows what he has done with the millions. It is possible he is a rich man investing in foreign tax havens, or in Nairobi on women and college girls.
It is also possible he has saved all his money in the banks and will invest when he is old, or dead.
To accuse others of investing in Homa Bay ostensibly because you claim their investments are proceeds of graft is petty politics.
Mbadi even attacks the matrimonial homes his competitors have built. Does he want his competitors to live in grass-thatched homes to prove that they are clean? This backward mentality is a danger to Homa Bay.
Mbadi reveals why he couldn’t develop Suba South. His worldview is that of a primitive man.
Mbadi decided to run for Homa Bay gubernatorial election because he is running away from Suba South Constituency, where voters gave him the last chance. In the last polls, Mbadi had to be rigged in by ODM to defeat Caroli Omondi, former Chief of Staff in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Mbadi feared facing Caroli again, so it was good politics for him to run for Homa Bay County governor. He is assured of the vote of his ‘relieved’ Suba South constituents, as they will no longer suffer under him as their Member of Parliament. Elsewhere in the county, Mbadi is trailing Women Rep Gladys Wanga and former Kasipul MP Oyugi Magwanga. A recent poll even revealed former Homa Bay County Secretary Isaiah Ogwe is ahead of him.
Mbadi has no stronghold in Homa Bay. Not Ndhiwa, not Homa Bay Town, not Kasipul, not Rangwe, not Kabondo Kasipul, and not even his Suba backyard. Everywhere, he is trailing behind, and with less than a month to the ODM nominations, he is desperate to shore up his numbers.
Thus, the heightened dog-whistling. Thus the toxicity and the bile. It may not pay off.
