The United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party has decried political violence allegedly targeted at the Deputy President William Ruto-linked outfit ahead of the August 9 General Election.
In a protest letter to President Uhuru Kenyatta, UDA Secretary-General Veronica Maina demanded the Head of States intervention saying security agencies had turned a blind eye to recent chaos witnessed in several parts of the country.
In the letter copied to the prosecutor, the International Criminal Court (ICC), Maina claimed the violence was sponsored by the state.
Linking Raila Odinga’s ODM party to the violence, the SG warned that the country could plunge into chaos ahead of the polls if no immediate action is taken.
“We write to express our profound concern about recent deeply worrying security incidents, sustained by official inaction and condonement by the state, and their implications in the light of the Impending General election, and national stability in general,” Maina said in the letter dated January 17.
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She cited the Sunday incident where goons disrupted the DP’s rally at Jacaranda Grounds.
“On Sunday,16 January 2022 at the Jacaranda grounds in Nairobi’s Embakasi East constituency of Nairobi County, a gang of rowdy goons chanting “ODM”, “Raila” and “Azimio” slogans violently attacked people who had turned up to listen to the Deputy President, who was touring the area.
“Their attempt to disrupt the event failed, but the apprehension, injury and alarm caused to innocent members of the public cannot and must not be overlooked,” she said.
Maina argued that the violence amount to suppression of democratic competition.
“It has since become abundantly clear that the goons were encouraged and facilitated to prevent the event from taking place, in keeping with ODM’s ‘Bedroom Policy’ of using violence to ring-fence parts of the country as no-go-zones for other political parties.
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“This disastrous practice is an official policy in ODM, and has been implemented over the years to suppress democratic competition, at horrendous cost to innocent Kenyans in life, limb and possession,” she added.
The SG stated that at least six similar incidents have been reported to the Inspector General of Police but no serious action has been taken against the perpetrators.
“Attacks on our members are invariably treated with a contemptuous absence of seriousness. To date, over ten (10) major criminal incidents of violent disruption have taken place, and at least six (6) have been brought to the attention of the Inspector-General of the National Police Service. They have all gone unattended by his office,” she said.
“This negligence on their part is not only dismaying to all law-abiding Kenyans, and disappointing to the UDA fraternity, but it also explicitly signals the State’s approval or support for the criminal acts of ethnic and political violence conducted in furtherance of a divisive agenda obviously focused on the 2022 General Election.”
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UDA called on the President to reign in on security bosses to avert a potential crisis ahead of the polls.
“We respectfully remind you that the postelection violence in 2007 was catalysed by acts as well as omissions of negligent, unprofessional and partisan State security organs and agencies. The emerging pattern of State-sponsored violence accompanied by official inaction is beginning to assume ominous dimensions,” Maina said further accusing Odinga’s camp of hate speech during the recent Azimio la Umoja event held in Thika Stadium on Saturday.
“Without your impartial and proactive enforcement of the legal framework to uphold Constitutional freedoms, human rights, democratic participation and national cohesion, your government will in effect be enabling the ODM and Azimio to set the stage for an extremely troubled General Election season in 2022.
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“We, therefore, demand an assurance from Your Excellency, as the chairman of the National Security Council, that Kenyan lives and property remain protected under the law, and that the instruments of State and security apparatus will not be deployed in a partisan manner, or to cause mayhem and deaths to propel a preferred candidate to victory, hence compromising the constitutional right of 50 million Kenyans to have a say in a free fair, transparent and peaceful election guaranteed by the Constitution.”
The letter is also copied to, among others, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji, National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director-General Philip Wachira Kamweru and National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) Chairman Dr. Samuel Kobia.
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