Senior Manager Odhiambo Ooko Accused of Favoritism, Document Fabrication, and Orchestrating Dismissal Over Suspected Love Triangle
In what has exploded into the corporate scandal gripping Nairobi’s water cooler conversations, a former Safaricom employee has blown the whistle on what he claims was a calculated character assassination orchestrated by Employee Relations Manager Odhiambo Ooko—allegedly to protect not one, but potentially two women in what insiders are whispering could be a tangled office romance gone nuclear.
Edwin O, who joined Safaricom on the same fateful day as Ooko back in August 2017, has unleashed a social media storm with allegations that read like a corporate telenovela.
Both men arrived from Barclays Bank, where their paths first collided over another disputed disciplinary matter.
But their reunion at Safaricom would prove catastrophically explosive, culminating in what Edwin claims was a vendetta fueled by jealousy, favoritism, and the kind of workplace drama that HR departments have nightmares about.
The plot has all the ingredients of a Kenyan corporate thriller.
There’s Monica Gachagua, the newly promoted Team Lead who suddenly took issue with Edwin’s remote work arrangement despite his stellar performance.
There’s the mysterious Susan, an office girlfriend allegedly linked to Ooko, whose name Edwin cryptically drops in his posts with the tantalizing disclaimer: “I don’t know her…yes Mr Ooko thinks that his cake was eaten but I can equivocally state without being contradicted that I don’t know her. If someone ate your cake, it was not me. I’m not the guy that ate your cake.”
That statement alone has set corporate Kenya ablaze with speculation.
Who is Susan? What cake are we talking about? And why would an Employee Relations Manager risk his entire career over suspicions of an affair that Edwin vehemently denies?
The drama began innocently enough in April 2023 when Edwin’s performance was nothing short of exceptional—pulling 20 calls per hour against a target of 17, maintaining 99% adherence when only 96% was required.
Then Monica Gachagua entered the scene as his new Team Lead, immediately questioning why he was working remotely despite numbers that would make any manager salivate.
What should have been a routine performance conversation spiraled into what Edwin describes as a witch hunt, with Gachagua bypassing the entire chain of command to report him directly to HR for “coasting.”
The irony is delicious.
How does someone performing at 120% capacity suddenly get accused of slacking? Unless, of course, the real issue wasn’t performance at all.
Edwin had submitted his resignation following the escalating tensions, which HR accepted with eyebrow-raising speed—within 48 hours, no validation, no exit interview, no questions asked.
For a company that supposedly values talent retention, that’s the kind of haste that screams “good riddance.”
Then, just five days later, the other shoe dropped. Edwin received a show-cause letter accusing him of reduced productivity since submitting his notice. The timing was surgical, the intent transparent.
But the real scandal erupted during what Edwin describes as the disciplinary hearing itself. Scheduled for a day he was on leave, Ooko personally reached out to request his attendance, painting it as a “friendly meeting” to discuss alternative roles and mend fences. Edwin believed him.
What he walked into instead was a Microsoft Teams ambush where Ooko allegedly spent 25 minutes delivering a sermon on professionalism while simultaneously—and witnesses can apparently corroborate this—engaging in what Edwin describes as “busy flirting” with Monica Gachagua throughout the proceedings.
Let that sink in.
The man chairing the disciplinary panel was allegedly making eyes at the complainant during what’s supposed to be a formal hearing.
The other panel members sat mute, reduced to extras in Ooko’s one-man show. Edwin’s own manager, who was supposed to represent him, wasn’t even allowed to speak. It wasn’t justice; it was theatre with a predetermined ending.
The day before his last official workday, Edwin was summoned to what he thought was a performance review.
Instead, he was served a dismissal letter. When he refused to sign it, the colleague he’d brought along for moral support was forcefully made to sign instead—a detail that, if accurate, represents the kind of procedural gymnastics that would make employment lawyers lick their chops.
Edwin filed an appeal within 24 hours, as company policy required.
He waited 30 days for a hearing date. Then 60. Then 90. After three months of deafening silence, he received an email stating his clearance had been cancelled and instructing him to return to work. Victory, he thought.
The appeals panel had clearly seen through the vendetta. But when he reached out to Operations for his return-to-work instructions, Ooko himself materialized with a response that must have felt like a slap: the termination had been upheld.
Edwin had never been notified of any appeal hearing. No meeting invite had landed in his inbox. No panel had interviewed him.
Yet Ooko casually informed him that a “secret meeting” had convened somewhere in the ether and ruled against him.
When Edwin demanded documentation—minutes from both the disciplinary and appeal hearings—Ooko allegedly replied that the matter was “buried.” The corporate equivalent of “nothing to see here, move along.”
Multiple senior managers, including HRBP Andrew Mwangangi and Operations Manager Mary Ouko, have since played hot potato with responsibility, blaming the chaos on “system issues.”
Apparently, Safaricom’s vaunted M-Pesa technology works flawlessly for millions of transactions daily, but their HR systems have more glitches than a bootleg video game when it comes to one junior employee’s exit process.
But Edwin isn’t buying what they’re selling, and neither is the court of public opinion.
His LinkedIn posts have gone viral, racking up thousands of engagements and forcing Safaricom’s brass into an uncomfortable spotlight.
He’s asking the questions that should make the C-suite squirm. Why would a resignation be rubber-stamped in 48 hours if the company valued him? Why would HR then reverse course to pursue flimsy disciplinary charges? Why would the Employee Relations Manager personally chair a hearing involving someone he has documented history with from their Barclays days? Why would that same manager allegedly flirt with the complainant during proceedings? And most damningly, who is Susan, and what does she have to do with any of this?
The Susan angle is where this story transforms from workplace grievance into full-blown scandal. Edwin’s cryptic references to someone eating Ooko’s cake have spawned a thousand theories across Nairobi’s professional networks.
Was Susan involved with Edwin? Was she involved with Ooko? Did Ooko believe they were involved when they weren’t? And did that misplaced jealousy fuel a campaign to destroy Edwin’s career?
According to reports now circulating in media outlets, insiders at Safaricom are whispering about Ooko’s alleged romantic entanglements within the company.
The suggestion is that Ooko may have suspected Edwin of involvement with Susan, his supposed office girlfriend, and used his position to orchestrate a retaliatory dismissal disguised as performance management.
If true, this elevates the scandal from procedural irregularity to abuse of power motivated by personal jealousy—the kind of thing that gets people fired and companies sued.
Edwin has been meticulous in his accusations, careful to note that he knew Ooko from their Barclays days and bears him no personal malice. He’s not seeking revenge; he’s seeking justice. But his repeated references to Ooko “covering his insecurities” and the manager’s alleged pattern of blocking Edwin’s career advancement both at Barclays and now at Safaricom paint a picture of a man who may have been settling scores that had nothing to do with work performance.
The allegations extend beyond romantic jealousy. Edwin claims Ooko has impersonated senior officials, including CHRO Nyokabi Florence, in official communications—a charge he says he’s raised with both Florence and Mary Ouko without resolution.
He’s questioning why, months after his supposed termination was finalized, he still hasn’t received clearance, his final pay remains in limbo, and critical documentation from hearings that may or may not have happened remains conspicuously absent.
The most explosive allegation?
That the entire disciplinary circus was fast-tracked specifically to ensure Edwin wouldn’t receive his performance bonus and service payments. If proven, this transforms the matter from a bad breakup into potential fraud, the kind that attracts lawyers like blood attracts sharks.
Safaricom has maintained radio silence on the allegations, which have now been picked up by multiple media outlets and shared thousands of times across social platforms.
For a company that built its reputation on the transparency and integrity championed by the late Bob Collymore—a man who once fired 28 team leaders in a single day for recruitment process contamination—this studied indifference to equally serious allegations is baffling and telling.
The real question isn’t whether Edwin got railroaded—the procedural failures he documents are damning on their own.
The question is why. Was this personal vendetta stemming from their Barclays history? Was Ooko protecting Monica Gachagua, with whom he was allegedly flirting during the hearing? Was he punishing Edwin over suspected involvement with the mysterious Susan? Or was it some toxic combination of all three, a perfect storm of wounded ego, territorial jealousy, and abuse of institutional power?
In corporate Kenya, where professional and personal lives intertwine in ways that would scandalize Western HR departments, these situations are more common than anyone wants to admit.
But when the person responsible for ensuring workplace fairness is allegedly weaponizing processes to settle romantic scores, the entire edifice collapses.
And when that person allegedly does so while making eyes at the complainant during formal proceedings, you don’t just have a scandal—you have a farce that insults everyone’s intelligence.
What makes this particularly delicious for scandal watchers is the paper trail Edwin has assembled. Screenshots of communications, references to specific policies violated, a timeline that holds together with the precision of a prosecutor’s brief.
This isn’t some disgruntled employee venting into the void; this reads like someone building an evidence file for litigation.
Safaricom hasn’t just ignored these allegations—multiple senior managers Edwin contacted have apparently engaged in an elaborate finger-pointing dance, each blaming mysterious “system issues” or claiming ignorance rather than conducting a proper investigation.
For a company that once demonstrated zero tolerance for ethical breaches, this hands-off approach suggests either catastrophic incompetence or institutional paralysis when one of their own is accused.
The Susan mystery hangs over everything like perfume that lingers after someone’s left the room. Edwin’s adamant denial—“I don’t know her”—coupled with his pointed references to Ooko’s cake being eaten by someone else, has corporate Kenya playing detective.
Who is she? What’s her role at Safaricom? Was there ever actually anything between her and Edwin, or was this all in Ooko’s head? And if it was all imagined jealousy, how many other careers has Ooko potentially damaged over perceived romantic slights?
Edwin isn’t asking for Ooko’s head, though plenty on social media are ready to deliver it on a platter.
He’s asking for what any employee deserves: fair process, documentation of proceedings, proper appeals, and his terminal benefits.
That Safaricom has allegedly failed to provide any of these basic elements months after his departure suggests either spectacular dysfunction or deliberate stonewalling. Neither looks good on East Africa’s most prominent telecommunications giant.
The corporate world is watching, WhatsApp groups are buzzing, and somewhere in Westlands, Odhiambo Ooko must be wondering if protecting his pride—or his alleged office romance—was worth becoming the most talked-about HR manager in Kenya for all the wrong reasons. And Susan, whoever she is, might want to consider working from home for a while.
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