Omtatah suspended from Senate over 'yapping' remark

Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah. [File, Standard]

Senate Speaker Amason Kingi has suspended Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah from the House for three sitting days after he tried to justify remarks he made against President William Ruto on Wednesday afternoon.

Speaker Kingi ordered Omtatah to leave the chambers on Thursday afternoon after he refused to withdraw remarks he had made about the President’s roadside declaration, terming him “yapping,” a term that was declared unparliamentary.

When the senator was given a chance to withdraw the remarks, he instead tried to justify the use of the word, insisting that it was not unparliamentary. He insisted that what he had said was based on what he had observed, something that irked the Speaker.

“I would like to inform the House that the term I used was not unparliamentary. It was my personal observation that the President was yapping when he made roadside declarations, the word is therefore not unparliamentary as you are saying Mr Speaker Sir,” said Omtatah.

Kingi asked Omtatah to leave the Chamber immediately, failure to which he would direct the Sergeant at Arms to throw him out.

The senator continued explaining himself in defiance after the Speaker had suspended him from the House.

Kingi reminded Omtatah that the proceedings were being conducted under the rules of the Kenyan Parliament and not those of the Westminster Parliament, which he was alluding to, and asked the Sergeant at Arms to remove the senator from the precincts of Parliament.

The Speaker said that the senator had made the unparliamentary remark while contributing to a statement sought by Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna regarding the living conditions of refugees at the Kakuma Refugee Camp during the Wednesday afternoon sitting.

“The Standing Order states that it shall be out of order for the use of offensive or insulting language by Senators on their colleagues or other people. Senator Omtatah was directed to withdraw the offensive words and replace them with the correct words,” said the Speaker.

Omtatah has been very critical of the Ruto administration and is known for challenging the current and previous administrations over their conduct on various matters affecting the public.