Who is Gidion Mbuvi Kioko aka Gideon Mbuvi Kioko aka Mike Sonko?

New Makadara MP Gidion Mbuvi Kioko was sworn in as controversy surrounding his past rose, especially over an alleged prison break in 1998 and a dramatic stint at Kamiti Maximum Prison in 2001.

The MP, who is more popularly known by his alias, Mike Sonko, took his seat in the august House on a day he battled fresh accusations regarding a tainted past and concerns about his clearance to contest a parliamentary seat.

When Sonko absconded incarceration, all he left were the remains of the shackles he left on his hospital bed. He was probably unchained by a willing police officer, and the records at Shimo la Tewa Prison show that a Mr Gideon Mbuvi Kioko, who was supposed to be incarcerated there for six months escaped, and is still on the run.

But even as focus turned to the 1998 incident, Sonko conceded he was jailed for two months at Shimo la Tewa, but denied any escape.
"I was arraigned in court over some matter for which I was released on bail. When that date came I skipped court because I had to attend my mother’s burial," said the MP. He argued that the only reason he got into trouble to begin with was that he only absconded a court bond, which earned him a four-month jail term.

"I stayed behind bars for only two months then I was released by Justice Oguk following an appeal against my sentence. I never escaped from Kamiti and there is evidence to prove that I was set free by the High Court," he said, as he fought off a report in The Star on Tuesday, that he was jailed over forgery and booked in as prisoner Number KAM/1255/2000/LS. The newspaper carried an affidavit in which Kioko said he had been denied bond/bail and was in Kamiti serving a four-month sentence. He also listed several medical conditions he said he had and which could be complicated by prison conditions, adding he was from a poor family.

But in reference to the Mombasa case, Sonko appears to suggest it was one and the same case as the one that took him to Kamiti — and so, too, he argued was his innocence against forgery charges that is a common denominator in both. He said when he was arraigned before a magistrate in Mombasa over the contempt of court case; the magistrate allegedly sentenced him even as he explained he was attending his mother’s funeral the same day the case come up.

The MP denied ever forging documents aimed at acquiring prime land in Mombasa. "All those stories being written about me are all false. They have even said all my parents are dead when it is only my mother who passed on," said an angry Sonko. He said the adverse publicity was meant to paint him as a criminal, somebody unfit to be a leader, "but I will not be cowed by those negative stories". He added: "My people know me and I am ready to serve them diligently." He added in reference to the report: "One of the papers have named one Gideon Mbuvi Kioko as the one who escaped from Shimo La Tewa. Those are not my names. As per my ID my names are Gidion Mbuvi Kioko. The person whose details they published is not I even though the impression being created is that I am the one."

Sonko was already subject to rebuttals by the Interim Independent Commission, which argued that vetting should have been the responsibility of political parties and that disciplinary cases were not in its domain.

This was about claims IIEC could have allowed a leader with a criminal past access to Parliament contrary to the requirements of the new Constitution. Outside Parliament, Sonko claimed there were attempts to tarnish his name and wondered why all those details about his past were being published days after his victory.