Jubilee party is planning to kick out deputy Secretary general Caleb Kositany and replace him with a fellow Nandi, Cherangany MP Joshua Kuttuny.
Kositany who doubles up as Soy MP, a constituency in Uasin Gishu county, is a vocal supporter of deputy president William Ruto while Kuttuny who represents Cherangany which is in Trans Nzoia county is a supporter of Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga handshake.
Kuttuny will be rewarded with the post for his support for the Building Bridges Initiative which saw him become the key speaker from the Kalenjin community during the public rallies held across the country before they were halted due to the outbreak of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.
In the 2007 elections, Kuttuny successfully contested for the Cherangany parliamentary seat on an ODM ticket but failed to recapture it in the 2013 elections when he lost to Boston Marathon winner Wesley Korir.
After losing, he was appointed by Uhuru as his political adviser, a post he held up to December 2017 when he declared his candidature for the Cherangany parliamentary seat.
He won the seat with a slim margin. Sources revealed that the move to appoint Kuttuny to replace Kositany is meant to appease the Nandi community whose son will be losing the big seat of Jubilee for supporting Ruto’s presidential bid as his replacement will come from the community.
Nandis are second in numbers to Kipsigis among the Kalenjin.
Kipsigis community occupies Bomet and Kericho counties. The Kipsigis are also found in Narok and Nakuru counties which they share with the Maasai and Kikuyu communities besides other tribes.
Sources added that the move to appoint Kuttuny is also informed by the realization that the Nandis of Trans Nzoia, unlike those in Uasin Gishu, Nandi counties which is Ruto’s home turf, are likely to cast their lot with the president’s wing in 2022 polls.
In contrast in Uasin Gishu county, where Soy constituency is situated, Ruto enjoys massive support and hence it would be unwise to appoint Kositany’s replacement from the region as the appointment will have little impact on the ground.
The Nandi’s dominance of Uasin Gishu county came to the fore in the last general election when the Soy MP sparked a storm by declaring the community would determine the choice of governor as they are the majority.
Sources say the decision by Jubilee to fire Kositany was arrived at after he launched a full attack on secretary-general, Raphael Tuju, demanding the financial records of the party.
In an episode that added fuel to the cold wars between the president and his deputy, Kositany in a letter to Tuju which was copied to the Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu, claimed he was acting on behalf of more than 100 MPs and over 500 MCAs who are members of the party in demanding information on Jubilee’s financial records from 2016 to date.
He demanded Tuju vanish him with the approved budgets for financial years 2016/2017, 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020, as well as all approved procurement records, reports and all committee minutes for the same period.
Kositany also demanded records for all Jubilee party county offices including copies of lease agreements as well as the lease or tenancy agreements for the party’s headquarters in Nairobi since 2016.
His demand came days after he accused top party officials of squandering funds, alleging that officials at the party’s headquarters were spending more than Sh7 million per month on tea and snacks.
