Trouble rocks Jubilee over chief whip post

By Geoffrey Mosoku

Nairobi, Kenya: TNA MPs from Nairobi are now planning to storm out of  the ongoing Jubilee retreat in Naivasha in protest after Rachael Shebesh was asked to quit the race for chief whip.

The MPs who boycotted Tuesday night session left Nairobi Wednesday at 12 pm and headed to Naivasha to execute their mission.

“We cannot accept some demands that Shebesh stops contesting for the position of chief whip,” Senator-elect Mike Mbuvi Sonko said at a Nairobi hotel where he was leading over six MPs-elect.

Sonko said that Shebesh, who is the Nairobi Women Representative-elect, was directed by the party hierarchy to pave way for a candidate from another region.

“She has been told to step down foe either Amina Abdalla or Moses Sakuda,” the Nairobi senator said insisting that Nairobi MPs will be pushing for that specific position.

“We will go to Naivasha and if they don’t listen to our demands, we will storm out of that meeting,” Embakasi West MP-elect George Theuri said.

Others who were with Sonko include Shebesh, Benard Mutura (Makadara), James Gakuaya (Embakasi North), John Njoroge (Kasarani), John Ndirangu (Embakasi Central) and George Wanjohi (Mathare).

The legislators are describing the decision to frustrate Shebesh’s ambitions as open discrimination saying Nairobi has not been given any representation.

“All TNA MPs-elect but one are from the Kikuyu community in Nairobi and this cannot be used to deny the city of its rightful share of parliamentary positions,” Sonko said in the company of the seven.

Only Maina Kamanda (Starehe) Yusuf Hassan (Kamkunji) and Waihenya Ndirangu (Roysambu) were absent from Sonko’s meeting at the Boulevard hotel.

At the same time, the lawmakers said they will confront the party leadership to protest the manner in which a list of 18 nominees to the Nairobi County Assembly was drafted.

They alleged that some party officials had sold the positions to the highest bidders and did not consult them as elected MPs before forwarding the names.

“The only give meet three places to propose names but excluded all the ten elected MPs. We are not going to accept this,” Sonko added shortly before departing to Naivasha.

President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto are currently leading a Jubilee alliance retreat in Naivasha’s Great Rift Valley Lodge to ostensibly agree on the tentative list of candidates for parliamentary seats ahead of parliament’s opening tomorrow.

The alliance has already thrown its weight behind Justin Muturi for National Assembly Speaker and Joyce Laboso as deputy but is yet to agree on whom to support for senate speaker, which has attracted three candidates from the coalition. They include Samuel Poghisio, Francis Kaparo and Ekwe Ethuro.

Jubilee’s rivals Cord alliance MPs and senators elect are slated to arrive in Nairobi’s Cooperative College in Karen, Wednesday afternoon for an overnight stay from where they will depart to parliament on Thursday morning for swearing in and election of speaker.