Mudavadi caps Malava by-election victory with son’s grand wedding – PHOTOS
It was indeed a very happy ending for Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi.
Ecstasy, elation, exuberance, ebullience and uluation are descriptions that defined last week for Mudavadi who is also the Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs.
The week started with Mudavadi deeply immersed in political campaigns for the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party candidate in the November 27 Malava by-election.
The former Vice-President, who spent most of the week in Malava pushing the case for UDA’s David Ndakwa, kicked off his homestretch dash by receiving defecting candidate Joab Burudi Manyasi from the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) party.
At a ceremony also witnessed by Uasin Gishu senator Jackson Mandago and Kakamega Deputy Governor Ayub Savula, Manyasi, who had contested for the seat in both 2017 and 2022, pledged to support Ndakwa, to the elation of Mudavadi and his UDA stalwarts.
Two days later, Mudavadi paraded three former UDA aspirants in the by-election who vowed to support Ndakwa after they lost to him in the party’s nominations on September 20 and have since been rewarded with State positions.
The trio: Ryan Injendi, Simon Kangwana and Leonard Shimaka were respectively appointed by President William Ruto as Trade Attaché to Kenyan Embassy in South Africa, Education Attaché to the Kenyan High Commission in Uganda and board member of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
Injendi is the son of departed legislator Malulu, Kangwana is the immediate former Principal of Kivaywa High School while Shimaka is a Mombasa-based practising lawyer.
Ecstasy came for Mudavadi’s day in the sun on Thursday when the voters in Malava went to the polling booths to elect their new Member of Parliament.
The election provided Mudavadi with another room for elation as his candidate swept the boards to emerge victorious.
Ndakwa got 21, 564 votes to trounce the outspoken secretary-general of the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN), Seth Ambusini Panyako of the Democratic Action Party of Kenya (DAP-K) who garnered 20, 210 votes and give others.
The moment of ululation came on Saturday when Mudavadi’s first-born son, Moses Budamba, formally tied the knot with Qillian Ndeso Sayia at a grand ceremony held at the Ulinzi Sports Complex along Lang’ata Road in Nairobi.
The bride is from Malava constituency. She is from the Abasonje clan of the Kabras sub-tribe. She is the daughter of former Nominated Senator Naomi Shiyonga alias Mama Signal and former General Service Unit (GSU) Commandant William Atswenje Sayia who is also a former Commandant of Kenya Police Training College, Kiganjo.
There could have been no better way to cap a week of positives for the Prime Cabinet Secretary than legally getting a daughter-in-law from a constituency from where he had only two days earlier also got a new Member of Parliament after vigorous – if not rigorous – campaigns.
There is no chancing here: Former Deputy Prime Minister and former Sabatia MP Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi is obviously over the moon.
