There was confusion during the resumption of the National Assembly sittings on Tuesday, February 11 as Azimio MPs occupied the majority side in line with the court ruling that stripped the majority status from Kenya Kwanza.
The Azimio MPs arrived in Parliament and occupied the Majority side at 2:30 PM, moments before the afternoon session commenced.
National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula commenced the sittings with the business of the day albeit with disruptions from the Azimio side who prevented Kilifi North Member of Parliament Owen Baya from discussing an Auditor General report.
This forced Wetangula to listen to issues raised by Azimio led by Suba South MP Millie Odhiambo who noted that the speaker should step down and allow his deputy, Gladys Boss, to take over due to the conflict of interest. She also advocated for Wetangula to declare her as Majority whip, Junet Mohamed as the Majority leader and Robert Mbui as his deputy.
“Mr Speaker if you look at the court’s judgment, they inferred that because of your conflicting positions as Speaker and party chair. I humbly request you to step down and mandate Gladys Boss Shollei to take over in discharging the functions as the speaker,” she said.
Junet echoed Millie’s remarks by calling for the House to honour the court’s ruling; citing that the ruling party must not be the Majority.
In the High Court ruling, Justices John Chigiti, Lawrence Mugambi, and Jairus Ngaah of the High Court ordered that Speaker Wetangula should step down due to his conflicting role as both Speaker and Ford Kenya Leader.
Among those who found themselves in unfamiliar territory was Owen Baya, who before the resumption of the sittings had been the deputy majority leader.
The Kilifi North legislature stood to table a report by the Auditor General but he was heckled down by members and denied the chance to table the papers.
“Honourable Speaker, I beg to lay the following papers on the floor of the House,” he started off amid a shouting match between members of either side of the Parliament.
His attempts to proceed with tabling the papers were cut short as soon as he said, “The Auditor General’s report…”
Azimio members walked to Baya’s seat with House orderlies in tow, and as they exchanged words, Speaker Moses Wetang’ula attempted to calm the situation to little avail and resumed his seat.
In their ruling, the judges said Wetangula acted unreasonably when he assigned to the Kenya Kwanza Alliance 14 members of the Azimio coalition who had resigned from the outfit.
Wetangula dismissed the calls to resign, citing that the judgment did not instruct him to do so.
“She has raised two points; one of which I’ll dispose of quickly. As to whether the Speaker should preside over the proceedings, I’ll dispose of it as follows; there’s no motion about the speaker. I am your senior lawyer, I have read that judgment and there’s nowhere it requires me to do that (resign),” Wetangula stated.
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