Legislators clash in public over BBI at Migori funeral

 

Six legislators on Friday differed in public over the way forward for the Building Bridges Initiative after the signature collection was stopped on Thursday.

The legislators drawn from the East Africa Community integration committee of the National Assembly differed at the funeral of Jeffrey Mosama, brother to Kuria West MP Mathias Robi at Mabera centre in Migori County.

Earlier the group had visited the Isebania border crossing with Tanzania for an official visit and later attended the funeral.

“We were told that we should not come to this funeral because this is Tanga Tanga and the Deputy President's area. I turned up here because we are building bridges to bring cohesion in this country,”  Ruweda Hassan, Lamu Woman Representative and the committee vice-chair said.

Other legislators who attended the funeral included MPs Hillary Kosgey (Kipkelion West), Kubali Iringo (Igembe Central), Sylvester Osoro (South Mugirango) and Kisii Woman Representative Janet Ong’era.

Amid a charged crowd of mourners who were against the BBI report, Ruweda and Ong’era stood firm saying the report will tackle marginalised communities like Kuria and insisted they were loyal to President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“We are firmly in BBI. The current constitution has done nothing for marginalised communities like Lamu and the Kuria community and the report offers hope to communities to make a change,” Ruweda insisted.

Ong’era said the resistance by the Kuria community against the report will be streamlined, “when we will lead a group of leaders to directly talk to women and youths in Kuria to support it.”

Kosgey and Osoro wondered why Ruweda and Ong’era could insist that they are supporting the report for being loyal to Kenyatta while they were in ODM, an opposition party.

“We campaigned twice for Kenyatta, while ODM was against us twice. So when we air our queries as Jubile, the opposition should keep quiet,” Kosgey said.

Osoro said passing through the BBI report when the economy is in shambles caused by Covid-19 was immoral as only bigger tribes will benefit from creation of posts under the new set up.

“We are not interested in the BBI report, the only debate we want is Deputy President William Ruto to be given his ten-year rule after Kenyatta finishes his in 2022 as he had promised,” Iringo said.

He said since no hard copy of the report has been availed to Kenyans and most are yet to access it.

The late Mosama was a former police man who resigned to take up business ventures.