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Citizen Weekly

Sunday 26 April 2015

Akaranga to drop his deputy come 2017 after drunken stupor in Singapore  


                                  
    Even with Vihiga deputy governor Caleb Amaswache strongly denying that he was deported from Singapore while on an official visit for causing a commotion while drunk, it has emerged that he was denied clearance and has been blacklisted by International Association Air Transporters Association.
Amaswache is among those called hostile passengers and his passport number was circulated among all IAAT members with strict instructions not to be cleared. It is on these grounds that during his press briefing, he openly said he will take time before flying out again.
Prior to the press briefing, it is said Governor Moses Akaranga summoned his deputy to his office and read him the riot act. Akaranga told him come 2017, he will not be his running mate. A bitter Akaranga went on to state how the flamboyant Amaswache has been an embarrassment as his social life is also wanting. It is whispered the deputy speaker earns a nil salary due to his overdrafts. Only recently, a Nakuru car dealer repossessed a vehicle he had sold to him due to failure to pay the balances. Akaranga at one time while visiting his deputy’s residence wondered loud why he was taking long to start a house construction to date.
As Akaranga starts shopping for his running mate ahead of 2017, within Cord and ODM, a research and survey done is said to favour Emuhaya MP Wilbur Otichillo as the flagbearer come 2017. ODM backing and planned direct nomination of Otichillo is to avoid fallout in areas perceived to be its strongholds. ODM is luring Senator George Khaniri to divorce Musalia Mudavadi. ODM plan is to have Khaniri get direct nomination for senatorship. We have information that ODM plans to award the larger Maragoli community with a nominated senator and will back them to win women representative and deputy governorship.
Otichillo, according to the plan, will replace Kennedy Butiko who has defected and is now associated with a new Luhya party set to be launched. The Maendeleo Party is said to have the backing of Cyrus Jirongo, Soita Shitanda and Kenneth Marende. Political analysts say Butiko performed well in 2013 due to the Cord support in the region. Compared to Otichillo, both Butiko and Akaranga are rated low. Otichilo’s academic and development credentials also work in his favour. 
Amaswache who holds the housing and urban planning docket had led a county delegation on a low cost housing conference in the Asian country and arrived back at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport three days after his departure in unexplained circumstances.
While addressing the press in his office after his arrival, he explained that security officers at Langi International Airport declined to allow him in the country because he had left the meeting’s invitation letter in a Nairobi hotel where he had spent a night before boarding his flight. Questions are being asked as to why he did not download it from his smart phone since it had been emailed.
Singapore authorities also demanded to be shown a return ticket by the deputy governor who travelled ahead of other members of the delegation whereas he further explained that his flight had been booked  through a travel agency. It has emerged while on the flight, the deputy drunk himself silly and started harassing air hostesses serving him with hard drinks. When drunk, Amaswache is known to lose direction and easily becomes violent. Akaranga had to save him sometimes back when arrested at a Kakamega social joint.
He was put on a plane back home which arrived at JKIA after 17 hours as it went through Bangkok, Amsterdam and Dubai. Following the harrowing experience he went through, he said he will think twice before travelling abroad again.
Amaswache maintained that he was not drunk on arrival in Singapore as reported in the media, dismissing the reports as mere rumours. He said that whereas drinks are served while on flight, passengers who become drunk and disorderly are normally requested by the crew to disembark but are not deported back to their countries of origin.
He displayed his passport and a copy of an entry visa to Singapore to show that he was not deported by Singapore authorities. He said he will surrender the imprest allocated to him for the conference amounting to Sh400,045 which includes cost of the travel ticket to Singapore. But he explained that his travel back to the country was footed by Singapore authorities.
He alleged that his political detractors were behind the deportation theory, adding that they had hatched a plot to besmirch his name and character which they have plotted to use against him to question his integrity to hold public office.
For Akaranga to salvage his image, he is under pressure to force him to step aside and name Sande Mukuna in the position. With Mukuna, he is bound to counter the emerging Otichillo-Khaniri camp in Vihiga county politics.

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