PRESIDENT Uhuru Kenyatta is tomorrow scheduled to meet Meru leaders to discuss, among other things, the decision by Igembe South MP Mithika Linturi to proceed with a motion to impeach Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru.
Last evening, the Njuri Ncheke (the Meru Council of Elders) said they will discuss Linturi and the region’s development plans with the President. But a source at Harambee House told the Star that Waiguru’s issue was not part of the agenda.
“Elected leaders from Meru will discuss development issues and Waiguru will not feature,” said the source, a senior official in the Office of the President.
Yesterday Cord leaders announced that they will not support the motion because “we do not want to be party to a fight we know nothing about”. “We are out of it,” said Suna East MP Junet Mohammed
The President’s meeting with Meru leaders will be at State House, Nairobi, and will be attended by, among others, MPs, religious leaders, members of the the Njuri Ncheke, and a number of businesspeople.
Linturi has stubbornly refused to withdraw his motion, despite calls from various Jubilee quarters. He has however made unsuccessful attempts to meet the President over the issue and it is expected that he will be among those trooping to State House tomorrow. Yesterday a sustained bid to withdraw the motion failed after the allied MPs disagreed.
The MPs, largely from the TNA and URP parties, had initially indicated they would withdraw their support for impeachment, but quickly changed their minds, saying the issue must be decided on the floor of the House.
This means that the impeachment will now be discussed in the House on Tuesday next week, having been allocated time after approval by House Speaker Justin Muturi. But there are indications the motion may be discontinued on a technicality, to save the embattled Cabinet Secretary.
The breakfast meeting attended by over 45 of about 200 MPs pushing for the Cabinet Secretary’s removal was divided largely along party lines.
Initial attempts by Linturi to have it withdrawn backfired as a section of MPs stormed out of the meeting, claiming there had been acts of compromise.
Two Cord MPs, Sirisia’s John Waluke and his Msambweni counterpart Suleiman Dori, sensationally claimed that their colleagues had been “bought”.
Linturi had apparently cited pressure from his community’s Njuri Ncheke leadership, of which he is a member, to have the matter terminated, at one point saying that he faces uncertainty in his political future if the matter was to reach the House, according to the two Cord MPs.
“We believe that the MPs have been bought to withdraw the motion. Money has exchanged hands and I am very disappointed because we don’t see the reason to continue with a meeting that has no value at all. He is telling us everything to do with the Njuri Ncheke and his political survival, but we are asking him why he never factored the two issues in when we were signing it,” said Waluke, as he left the meeting venue in a huff.
- the-star.co.ke
