Trans-Nzoia County Governor George Natembeya has attributed the recent court order barring him from accessing the county headquarters for 60 days to a broader scheme aimed at silencing his voice and limiting his political influence.
Speaking during a morning podcast on Wednesday, July 9, Natembeya expressed concern that the move was intended to prevent him from speaking out on social and governance issues he has consistently raised.
He stated that despite being locked out of the county offices, he would continue to express his views from any platform available to him, insisting that his voice cannot be silenced by restricting his physical access.
“If you are told not to go to the office for 60 days, I think the intention was to prevent me from going to Trans-Nzoia. They believe that when I am out of Trans-Nzoia, then I will not be able to talk about these things, but I have a platform elsewhere, even here, and I will be able to talk about these things,” Natembeya said.
Current trauma
Natembeya further decried a separate court directive barring him from commenting on the charges levelled against him.
He described the restriction as mentally exhausting, arguing that being denied the space to publicly respond to the accusations leaves him without an outlet to clear his name or address the allegations, saying that this has left him in a traumatised state.
“And you know you are told not to comment on these things; you are left traumatised when told not to talk about it, even the trauma is even more since if you share, it is better,” he stated.
He also criticised what he termed as a re-emergence of outdated methods used to suppress dissent, comparing the current political climate to the tactics employed during the Moi regime.
“This was the thing that was happening before 1992 during the single-party state, where the word of government was final,” he added.
Court’s directive
This comes days after being barred from accessing county headquarters for a period of 90 days pending investigations into the charges levied against him by the EACC.
In response to this, the governor announced shifting his county’s day-to-day operations to Kiminini sub-county, which is a few metres away from Kitale town.
