- Senator says every Kenyan has the right to either oppose or support the BBI
Image: EMOJONG OSERE
Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang'ula has asked leaders to stop using the Building Bridges Initiative to profile Kenyans.
He said politicians were classifying Kenyans based on their support or opposition to the handshake initiative.
Wetang'ula said Kenyans have the right to choose to support the BBI or not. He said no one should be discriminated against based on their choice.
“What is surprising is that we are seeing people realigning and saying so and so is not pro-BBI, that leader is pro-BBI yet we have not seen the BBI report itself. We have not read the report and we do not even know what it contains.
“What we want is to urge Kenyans to let the report come, we read, we analyse and then see if it will help the ordinary mwananchi before we go to the referendum. And a referendum should not be about making roadside noise,” Wetang'ula said.
He was speaking on Sunday when he officiated the opening of a new Ford Kenya office in Mundika, Busia county.
“As Ford-Kenya, we met the Yusuf Haji-led committee and we said we want to see more resources going to counties. We said we want to see the lives of the youth uplifted and we said we want to see the living standards of women uplifted,” he said.
The senator said the BBI should not be used to divide Kenyans who have suffered from the effects of violence during elections.
He said those dividing Kenyans on the basis of their support or otherwise for the BBI are enemies of Kenya.
“We want accountability during elections so that we don’t fight because for long, those who are defeated during polls are the ones declared winners and those who win are declared losers.”
Wetang'ula sked the government to dual the Nakuru-Mau Summit-Kisumu-Busia and the Nakuru-Eldoret-Webuye-Bungoma-Malaba highways to allow smooth flow of cargo trucks ferrying goods into Uganda.
He said dualling the two highways will reduce the cost of doing cross-border business.
“All the goods Kenya exports to Uganda pass through frontier counties. We want some of this wealth brought here to help the people. We want to see the road from Nakuru to Kisumu and from Nakuru to Malaba turned into dual carriageways so that cargo trucks can move quickly,” he said.
Edited by P.O