• The MPs said it will be shameful for the President to officiate Mashujaa Day celebrations if the bodies will not be retrieved.
• They asked locals to support DP Ruto for the presidency in 2022.
Image: Alice Waithera
Members of Inua Mama forum - allied to Deputy President William Ruto - have challenged President Kenyatta to go mourn with the people of Mombasa over the deaths of two people who drowned in the ocean.
Speaking at Kagundu-ini shopping centre in Kandara, the MPs said it is a shame that the government is preparing to hold Mashujaa day celebrations in Mombasa as the bodies of the two victims continue to lie at the bottom of the ocean.
The two drowned three days ago after their car plunged into the ocean from a ferry.
The MPs said the government is ill-prepared to handle tragedies when they occur, leading to unnecessary loss of life.
Nakuru Senator Susan Kihika said she lost members of her staff in a similar tragedy in 2017 when they crashed in a chopper.
Kihika said the incident was aggravated by the fact that they were forced to conduct a memorial for the victims without bodies.
Five people perished in the accident when the chopper they were flying in crashed into Lake Nakuru and only two bodies belonging to the pilot and one of the passengers were recovered.
“The government continues to remain clueless on how to handle such tragedies when they occur,” she said.
She pointed an accusing finger at Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho for posting on social that preparations being made by the Kenya Navy to celebrate Mashujaa day as the families of the victims continue to seek help.
The senator said Kibicho and Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia should resign saying all they do is hold boardroom meetings.
“If they have any integrity, they should have resigned by now. The victims were tax payers just like any other Kenyans. If a senior government official was involved, the bodies would have been retrieved by now,” she added.
“The bodies need to be recovered before we talk of salutations and celebrations. It is very wrong for the family to pay for divers to retrieve their kin."
Malindi MP Aisha Jumwa said it will be shameful for the president to attend the Mashujaa day celebrations in Mombasa if the two bodies will not have been recovered.
“By Mashujaa day, if the victims will not have been found, we will organise ourselves as women and mourn instead of joining the celebrations,” she said.
She said the leadership of the Kenya Ferry Services and Coastal Guard should be disbanded for their failure to protect the two lives and to retrieve their bodies.
If possible, she said, the President should take a flight to Mombasa to console the mourners.
“It is shameful that the Kenya Navy are doing their preparations just a few metres away from where the tragedy struck,” Jumwa added.
The MPs, who were over 30 including area MP Alice Wahome, reiterated their support for the Jubilee government and dismissed those planting seeds of discord in the ruling party.
They asked locals to support DP Ruto for the presidency in 2022, noting that the forum is a merry-go-round for women MPs to empower rural women.
They later held a similar event at Kamahuha in the neighbouring Maragua constituency.