Peter Ochieng' Orero, one of ODM’s aspirants for the Kibra Constituency by-election, has said he is not party leader Raila Odinga’s preferred candidate.
Mr Orero said he was not even aware of such allegations, and added that if they were there, then it was Kibra people saying that because of his close interaction with them for many years as a teacher.
“The preference must be coming from the people. It is not about Raila. We have not talked with Raila on this at any given moment. I have so far campaigned a lot on the ground and inculcated in peoples’ mind that my manifesto will resonate well with their aspirations,” he said.
Orero has worked with Kibra people since he started teaching in 1990. “My teaching practice was in Upper Hill School, before I was posted to Kamukunji High," he said.
Orero left Kamukunji for Upper Hill, where he joined as deputy, and then moved to Lang’ata as principal. He went back to Upper Hill as principal before again being moved to Dagoretti High in 2017 to date. He has, however, resigned to concentrate on politics.
You realise all these schools are in Kibra. In Lang’ata, we gave a lot of bursaries to students and had a lot of programmes that we worked with," he said yesterday.
Asked if he was pushed into politics, he said: “No one pushed me into politics”.
Orero explained that he had been involved in many elective posts in schools.
Becoming chairman
He has been Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association (KSSSA) as executive member, then vice-chairman in Nairobi, before becoming the chairman.
He became the chairman of Metropolitan-Machakos, Nairobi, Kiambu and Makueni.
He was also the national chairman of the KSSSA and also treasurer of Kenya Basketball Association, for the last 10 years.
Orero said the death of Kibra MP Ken Okoth shocked him because they had been close friends.
He said Okoth put up six classrooms at Upper Hill School, and two of those classrooms were reserved for students from Kibra.
Orero revealed that football star and Jubilee candidate McDonald Mariga was his former student at Kamukunji High. “He’s a footballer. I was his football coach. I am the one who mentored Mariga up to where he is,” he said.
He described Mariga as a very humble young man who might have been pushed to join politics.
