Kalonzo faults Gachagua impeachment, says he is a son of Mt Kenya

Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka while addressing the press in Nairobi where he stated that Deputy president Rigathi Gachagu's impeachment is meant sway Kenyans from contentious matters including the controversial Adani takeover. [Collins Oduor, Standard]

In the wake of the push against the government to shape up, Wiper Democratic Party Leader, Kalonzo Musyoka has seemingly been gravitating towards Mt Kenya, a rather fidgety region owing to the heat of impeachment against Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

Kalonzo yesterday downplayed Gachagua’s impeachment, terming it an illegality, and declined to point out whether he would work with him or not, should the Senate vote to remove him from office.

The Wiper leader called out 282 legislators who voted to impeach Gachagua saying they were being used as a smokescreen by the Kenya Kwanza administration to divert attention and cover its misdeeds, including multi-billion deals like that of Adani corporation.

“I do not want to anticipate anything. He has rights under the Constitution. I saw some weird arguments that he (Gachagua) cannot go to the Supreme court, that was terrible,” said Kalonzo in a press conference held in Nairobi.

“By the way, Embu is part of Mt Kenya, which until recently was the headquarters of Eastern province. Even now, some of these regional offices are there. So I’m really a son of Mt Kenya if you want to… I’m part of that because that is my provincial headquarters,” he added.

From calling out Wiper legislators who voted for Gachagua’s impeachment to recently stating that a motion against President William Ruto should also be brought if one is lodged against Gachagua to assuring the region of his support, Kalonzo has made his team’s position known.

Similarly, Kalonzo and his Azimio team were among the few leaders who joined Gachagua in the service of 21 pupils who perished in the Hillside Endarasha Academy fire last month. In his speech he did not spare the President Ruto.

“Ruto is busy racking up frequent flier miles. Instead of directing his efforts towards strengthening the schools’ safety system to ensure that such a tragedy does not happen again, Ruto has allowed his henchmen to distract the country with an impeachment motion against his Deputy,” Kalonzo said last month.

It was also Makueni Senator, Dan Maanzo, a close ally of Kalonzo, who filed a censure motion against Ruto over what he termed as questionable conduct while in office.

Kalonzo has since stated that the Executive has captured Parliament and if it was not clear before, the impeachment events made it so, even as he lauded 44 Mps who stood firm and listened to the people’s aspirations because Gachagua’s impeachment was like a lynch mob.

“The impeachment drama was a smokescreen that was meant to divert the attention of Kenyans and provide cover for multibillion deals to be sealed by the bread-based Government. Gachagua, as a Kenyan, has got his rights under the law, and I can tell you quite frankly, I was very impressed by his own presentation and his own defence,” said Kalonzo.

“We want to assure Kenyans that we will not allow our country to be auctioned by this bread based regime. We shall fight them in parliament, courts and on the streets but we will never surrender our country to these latter-day merchants of Venice,” he added.

Kalonzo said Wiper party disciplinary machinery will make its decision known against its members who went against the party position on impeachment, saying that Lagdera Mp Farah Maalim is already undergoing disciplinary proceedings.

"By the way, the Farah Maalim thing must be made very clear because there were some very funny attempts I don't know whether by the Registrar of Political Parties to give the impression that the party has had elections and we have re-elected Farah Maalim as a deputy leader," Kalonzo said.

He said that they are dismayed by the haste involved in impeaching Gachagua, saying that the current National Assembly is illegitimate because it was impeached on June 25 during the Gen Z revolt and lack authority to adjudicate on such heavy matters of national importance.

“Under the cloud of the impeachment drama, Kenya has been ‘guptaed’ by Adani the way South Africa was State captured. Kenya is facing an unprecedented threat of State capture where our key sectors - Energy, Transport and Health - have seen multi-billion deals being granted by the broad-based government to one Adani in an opaque, non-competitive and secretive manner,” said Kalonzo.

On top of the Sh236 billion Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) deal they are to appear in court on October 17 to challenge it, he said the Government signed another one Sh95 billion energy deal and assured that it will also not go unchallenged.

He also said that the Judiciary is under attack and as the last line of defense, he urged it to continue being Kenyans’ shield and defender against an increasingly autocratic regime hell-bent in returning the country back to the dark days of oppression.

Kalonzo also stated that the public participation turned out to be a referendum question on Ruto himself, saying the legislators should be cautious and listen to the people because some of them cannot even go to address their own constituents.

Under the cloud of the impeachment drama, he said Kenya is facing an unprecedented threat of State capture.