EXCLUSIVE: MP Millie Odhiambo denies shouting down DP Ruto

Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo (pictured), has denied shouting down Deputy President William Ruto at Bomas of Kenya yesterday at the Bomas of Kenya. Odhiambo says she was only answering questions posed by the DP in his BBI address.

The outspoken legislator says she did not have a microphone to enable her respond to DP Ruto's submissions against the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report.

“I was answering his questions because he was asking us questions about what should be done, and I was basically reminding him he is the deputy president and I should be asking him the questions he was asking and not vice versa,” the MP said in an exclusive interview with KTN News.

Odhiambo concurred with DP Ruto’s thinking when she acknowledged that there may be areas that need strengthening in the report even if it promises more gains to the Kenyan people.

 “There are some issues that will be addressed through the constitutional review and some through legislative action,” she told KTN News.

Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo during the launch of the Building Bridges to a United Kenya Taskforce Report at the Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi. [Stafford Ondego, Standard]

During the launch at the Bomas of Kenya, DP Ruto made several submissions on areas to be reviewed in the BBI report. 

In his speech, he said the real elephant in the room was the post-poll winner-takes-it-all mentality which the BBI was trying to address by creating the position of a Prime Minister and two deputies.

He wondered how that would take care of other big political heavyweights who would still find themselves without political offices.

Midway his speech, the DP had to pause as sections of the crowd jeered at him while shouting “Respect the President.”

According to Odhiambo, the DP was talking of a coalition government something that the BBI report is not addressing.

“BBI is talking about inclusion [and] we are saying that in a case where you win as a president, then you need to expand the framework of regions that are represented in the executive,” she said.

The MP rubbished reports that DP Ruto allies never received invites for the Bomas of Kenya conference.

Odhiambo said most of the Tangatanga allied MPs chose not to show up despite being invited to the forum that was to be used to air issues in the report.

However, Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichungwah, a DP Ruto ally, says the process was surrounded with hypocrisy.

He echoed Ruto’s remarks that the report did not touch on issues affecting Kenyans such as unemployment of the youth, saying this ought to constitute the national dialogue.

“The only two people who captured imaginations of Kenyans were DP Ruto and former vice president Musalia Mudavadi,” he said, adding that, “those are the only people who were bold enough to articulate the real issues affecting Kenyans.”

Despite being heckled Ruto made his remarks insisting we needed to have a candid discussion before the report is embraced.