Fight for Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka pension headed to court

The fight to give opposition chiefs Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka a retirement package is headed to court. An Opposition MP is promising President Uhuru Kenyatta a major judicial embarrassment for denying his party leader a pension and the hefty perks that had been approved by the National Assembly.

The pursuit of the retirement perks in court has been given impetus by confessions from an Opposition MP that while some of them quit jobs in the public service, they continue to enjoy retirement benefits while serving in the Eleventh Parliament.

Raila has openly told the President and the Jubilee administration that he will not beg for the money and neither will he be forced to quit active politics. “I will not be blackmailed by the threat to withdraw the pensions for me to retire from politics. I will not retire because the President wants me to retire. I will retire when the people of Kenya want me to retire,” Raila said about the clause when he heard about the President’s memo to MPs.

Kalonzo sees the legal battle as the answer that will expose the double standards in the legislation that will be assented to in the next two weeks. “I am here with Marcus Muluvi, who did very good work in the National Assembly yesterday,” said Kalonzo on Friday outside the law courts in Nairobi shortly after suspended Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu was arraigned in court over corruption-related charges.

Muluvi, a retired KDF Major, confessed that even as he worked as an MP in Kenya’s National Assembly, he was still getting his pension from the military service.

The right to vie in elections and take part in political activity is the major, and perhaps the only, ground that lawmaker David Ochieng’ (Ugenya) will be taking to court in a bid to have the judges strike out the President’s proposal that for his opponents to get their pensions, then they have to quit politics.

Leading the charge

For Ochieng’, who will be leading the charge in court, the President and “Jubilee mandarins” were out to execute political “mischief” by making sure that the Opposition chiefs either choose to quit their challenge on the presidency in the next elections in order to get the pensions; or that they struggle in the political cold without the government millions they are expected to pocket.

“Any court that is properly guided will not allow this kind of provision to stand,” said Ochieng’ in an interview with journalists.

Article 38 of the Constitution makes it a right for “every citizen” to “to form, or participate in forming, a political party; to participate in the activities of, or recruit members for, a political party; or to campaign for a political party or cause”.

“When the President signs the Bill into law, we will go to court and ask it to expunge the illegal provision,” said the Ugenya MP.

Kakamega Senator Dr Boni Khalwale also warned the President to know that whatever laws are approved in the House will come to haunt him in future.

“When you make laws, make laws for posterity. He should know that even in the last Parliament, Raila and Kalonzo did not fight hard to defeat the law locking presidential candidates from participating in other elections. Now they are in the political cold,” said Khalwale.

The senator warned Deputy President William Ruto that he, too, would be affected by the clause because his ambitions for the top seat would be still alive when his term ends.

Those who will have to kill their political ambitions to access the pensions include Raila, Kalonzo, former VPs Musalia Mudavadi and Moody Awori, and former Speaker Francis ole Kaparo.