A missed Cabinet appointment in the Grand Coalition Government sparked off tension between the late Assistant minister Orwa Ojode and Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his allies.
Unknown to the public, the fallen minister had declined to accept his appointment as an assistant minister and was threatening to address the Press to make public his decision, The Standard On Sunday can now reveal.
Ojode, who was in Ndhiwa when President Kibaki announced the Cabinet line-up, was shocked when a Cabinet slot he was promised was swapped with that of an assistant minister in the Internal Security ministry, a docket he held until his death.
The deceased and his minister Prof George Saitoti, together with their pilots and bodyguards were killed in a helicopter crash last Sunday.
On Thursday, Raila publicly spoke about how Ojode was disappointed with the appointment but never explained reasons for the swap.
“When the Grand Coalition came to power, Ojode was not happy that I had not given him a flag. He complained to me and I explained,” the PM told mourners in Nairobi.
The two were close political and personal friends. Several times he hosted the PM and his entourage overnight at his Unga home in Ndhiwa whenever Raila was in South Nyanza.
Ojode spent his time in the opposition ruthlessly defending the PM, just with the same zeal he shielded the State during his time in the Government.
Elders intervened
In Nairobi, they drunk together, drove in one car, and called each other frequently as the PM built campaigns for his 2007 presidential election.
In the Eighth Parliament, Raila had appointed Ojode a shadow minister for Local Government in the defunct National Development Party.
