Woman Rep faults Senate over public participation on Gachagua ouster bid

Kirinyaga Woman Representative Jane Njeri Maina. [File, Standard]

Kirinyaga Woman Representative Jane Njeri Maina plans to challenge public participation on the impeachment motion against Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

Njeri said despite an extension by the Kerugoya High Court, sufficient time was not allocated to the exercise.

"The Senate extended the public participation, but it wasn't done in the right way," she said.

Speaking on Saturday, Njeri claimed that the Senate did not follow the right procedure taking into consideration that the Seventh Day Adventist faithful did not have time to exercise their democratic right.

She argued that the same way the National Assembly gazetted public participation giving Kenyans sufficient notice and time, the Senate ought to have done the same.

Njeri said residents of Kirinyaga county, declined to participate in the exercise and it would be awkward to see results from the region being presented before the National Assembly.

She alleged that despite constituency offices being closed, some individuals were signing forms in their homes while others did have serial numbers.

“We know very well that in Kirinyaga County, public participation was an open declaration, no forms were signed, we understand that some individuals were signing forms in their homes, some forms do not have serial numbers, if we see the Speaker of the National Assembly counting signed forms, it would be a lie to the world and an infringement of their rights, no signing was done,” said Njeri.

The Woman Representative claimed that residents who engaged in the exercise on Friday were not more than 200.

 “The number of participants who turned up for Friday’s meeting couldn’t exceed 200, how comes we have 5,000 signed forms, this are generated material,” she claimed.

Njeri successfully petitioned the Kerugoya High Court to extend the public participation to the constituency level.

She argued that impeachment is a process and the law should be followed  to the letter.

 “Impeachment is a process, it’s not something to be done in a hurry, I know there are other cases that are going to follow and the current case will proceed,” she said.