The Building Bridges Initiative should not be at the expense of Deputy President William Ruto's 2022 presidential bid, Kuria West MP Mathias Robi has said.
Robi said Ruto will reject the BBI report as it is, he claimed, an agenda of only President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga.
The report will be handed to the President and Raila tomorrow.
The legislator said the DP allies will scrutinise it to establish if it is suitable for Kenyans or a plot by Uhuru and Raila to add more leadership burdens on Kenyans.
“We need for Kenyans to be free, live in peace for development and that is our hope in the report. Any attempt to appease only two Kenyans will be rejected like the Punguza Mzigo bill,” Robi said.
Robi asked Uhuru not to coerce other Jubilee leaders to support the BBI.
“After 10 years as our president, Kenyatta should prepare to go home. We enjoyed working with him in pushing development in Kenya. We only need to have a fresh decade under Ruto as agreed in Jubilee party," he said.
BBI, according to the MP, is a ploy to lock out Ruto from State House in the 2022 general elections.
‘’We will wait for the report to come out; we will scrutinise it as Kenyans and legislators and we won’t think twice to reject it if it a plot by only two Kenyans to divide seats,” Robi said.
His sentiments were echoed by MCAs Nicolas Ngabia (Tagare) and Augustine Mwera ( Ntimaru) who said the minority Kuria community's support for the report will be based on whether it takes care of minority communities’ interests.
“The Kuria population is more than that of Lamu and Tana River counties. The BBI team knows we want to have our own county and this is not negotiable,” Ngabia said.
Mwera said they will only cede ground and support the report if it recommends the creation of a Kuria county or additional two constituencies from the current Kuria East and Kuria West.
“We need to make it clear that as a community and Kenyans we hope the BBI report will be for Kenyans and not just for appeasing individuals,” he said.
The leaders spoke at Mabera Catholic Church on Saturday during Robi’s wedding to Catherine. The wedding was presided over by Fr Jacob Ombija.