Kenyan MPs lobby for session on security

By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU

KENYA: MPs are requesting a special session with security chiefs to seek answers about the runaway insecurity in the country. The lawmakers said in the last three-months Kenyans have suffered at the hands of criminals.

They said the House Committee on Administration and National Security was ill-equipped to brief the National Assembly on the status of specific security threats and incidents in the country.

Mr Nicholas Gumbo (Rarieda) said the time had come for all security bosses to have a direct access to the National Assembly to tell lawmakers why for the last three-months “most parts of the country have become death and torture chambers.”

Gumbo told the Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso on Tuesday that he had already written to the National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi to have the Cabinet Secretary of Interior Joseph ole Lenku allowed into the debating chamber to address MPs directly about the runaway insecurity.

“I beseech you that we should now have a session with the Cabinet Secretary and everyone else whose job it is to provide security for the nation,” said Gumbo, as he pleaded that such meetings with MPs be done at regular intervals.

“It is no longer a matter that we can invite the chairman of the National Security Committee for,” said Gumbo.

The chairman on the House Committee on National Security Asman Kamama said he had spoken to Cabinet Secretary Lenku, and that he was willing to come to the House and address the MPs on security.

If Lenku shows up, it will not be the first time that he will be addressing MPs. MPs met him in September during their retreat in Kwale.