Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko while speaking to the press outside the EACC headquarters in Nairobi on November 5, revealed how Embakasi East MP Babu Owino came to his rescue while in jail.
Governor Sonko was honouring a summon by the EACC regarding a case associated with charges filed against him in 1997 that the governor lamented never stopped haunting him.
He stated that the case had been brought up during 2010 before he won the Makadara parliamentary seat in a by-election and also during the 2013 and 2017 general elections.
"They again brought up the 1997 issue, this was the same case that was brought up when I won the Makadara by-election," Sonko stated.
The Nairobi governor recalled how during the 2010 incident, he was arrested and presented at the Kibera Law Courts and later remanded.
It was at this time that the current Embakasi East MP, then the Student Organisation of Nairobi University (Sonu) chairperson Babu Owino stepped in.
Babu mobilised students and took to the streets after the prosecution objected to Sonko's release on bail.
"All you media people were in court that day including Mohamed Ali [aka Moha Jicho Pevu] currently an MP. Even Babu Owino is the one who mobilised students stating that Sonko was being unfairly targeted," the governor added.
When given the opportunity to speak, Babu affirmed the statements by the governor revealing how together with other students he was teargassed in a bid to secure Sonko's release.
"The case that they are speaking about is a case that when I was a student leader at the University of Nairobi, Sonko had been taken to the Kileleshwa Police Station, the following day he was taken to Kibera Law Courts and that is when I mobilised students and we were teargassed," Babu Owino stated.
Despite the demonstrations, Sonko was remanded for a week at the Kileleshwa Police Station and later released to a massive crowd that had come to wait for him at the station's entrance.
According to a Capital FM report published on November 29, 2010, the crowd chanting 'Tunataka Sonko wetu....woi woi tunataka Sonko aachiliwe (We want our Sonko...we want Sonko released) barricaded the entrance to the courts in protest before his release.
Babu cautioned the EACC against being used to settle political scores as alluded to by the governor and rather focus on maintaining its independence.
