Two months after the High Court nullified his election as the Member of Parliament for Kitutu Masaba, Mr Walter Nyambati still occupies his parliamentary office.

Mr Nyambati’s continued stay in the office on the second floor of County Hall has raised eyebrows of MPs and parliamentary staff.

The former MP is being accused of using the office and the privileges that come with it for his re-election campaign. And his campaign strategists and supporters who work from the office have reportedly become a thorn in the flesh of County Hall’s security officials.

Last week on the day MPs took a month-long break, House Clerk Patrick Gichohi told the Sunday Nation that the former MP was still “clearing from office”.

Mr Nyambati is not one to let go easily. Before he won the parliamentary seat in 2007, he had been contesting unsuccessfully for 20 years.

Branded Naomi

“I came and knocked (on your doors) for almost 20 years, and you told me no. Instead of giving me votes, you branded me Naomi,” he would tell his constituents during the campaigns. Naomi is the woman in the Bible recognised for her patience.

Soon after Mr Nyambati was declared the winner in 2007, voter Justus Omiti Mong’umbu moved to court to challenge the election, and the MP has ever since been fighting a court battle to save his seat. He lost it on August 12.

Mr Mong’umbu sued Mr Nyambati, returning officer Lawrence ole Sempele and the electoral commission over anomalies in the Kitutu Masaba parliamentary elections.

Mr Nyambati is expected to file his papers for re-election by November 4. The by-election has been set for November 28.

Mr Nyambati was the vice-chairman of the powerful Parliamentary Service Commission.

Meanwhile, he has said he will run for president next year.

No one has taken his political ambitions as seriously as his friend, North Mugirango MP Wilfred Ombui. In his County Hall office, a photo of the two men takes pride of place on the table.

“That’s me and the president (Mr Nyambati),” Mr Ombui told the Sunday Nation.

In Parliament at the numerous press events held by MPs who didn’t want to pay their taxes, Mr Nyambati spoke with authority, finality and a tinge of arrogance.

He was also among those MPs who protested against the presence of Jersey Island Solicitor-General Howard Sharp who came to lobby for the extradition of former Kenya Power boss Samuel Gichuru and Nambale MP Chris Okemo to face charges of laundering about Sh900 million.

Mr Nyambati seems to have convinced a group of legislators that he will win the forthcoming by-election. They have “reserved” his Parliamentary Service Commission position.

On September 15, Ndaragwa MP Jeremiah Kioni wrote to Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, the Leader of Government Business in Parliament, saying PNU would pick the person to fill the position after the by-election.

Mr Nyambati could not be reached for comment as calls and text messages to his cell phone went unanswered.

In telling his story, Mr Nyambati paints the picture of a man chosen by God to become a politician.

His curent situation is something of a circus. An election petition against him was first thrown out of court only for the Court of Appeal to reinstate it.

In May 2010, a three-judge Court of Appeal bench revived the election petition saying that Justice Mohamed Ibrahim erred when he struck it out on claims that the MP was not served.

Justices Philip Tunoi, Philip Waki and Erastus Githinji ruled that the petitioner conducted due diligence before serving the MP through newspaper advertisements.

The process server explained to the court that despite more than five attempts to serve the MP, some thwarted by difficulties during the january 2008 post-election violence that rocked the country, he was unable to reach him.

During the 2002 General Election, he contested the Kitutu Masaba seat and emerged second after Ford-People’s Mwancha Okioma.

In the 2007 elections, running on a Labour Party of Kenya (LPK) ticket, he was controversially declared the winner, defeating 32 other aspirants.