The anti-BBI team now says President Uhuru Kenyatta cannot initiate a popular initiative while still in power.
Lawyer Elias Mutuma for Thirdway Alliance on Thursday said Uhuru should have relinquished power before initiating the process.
“When the President was going to the Hague in 2014, he stripped himself of power and appointed his deputy as the acting President. He was not received at The Hague as the president he was received as a normal citizen. He should do the same if he wants to initiate popular initiative,” he said.
Mutuma has dismissed the submissions by lawyer Otiende Amollo that Suna East MP Junet Mohammed and BBI secretariat co-chairman Dennis Waweru are the promoters of BBI.
“My Lords and my ladies, the appellants claim that this was an initiative by Dennis Waweru and Junet Mohammed, I find that to be taking us for a ride. Instead of them coming here and owning up they told us that these two initiated the process,” he said.
Mutuma says they believe and have evidence that the BBI initiative was engineered by Presidnet Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga through the famous handshake.
“The impugned amendment must be viewed as a direct product of the handshake between President and Odinga in his official capacity,” Mutuma said.
“The promoters at the end is Building Bridges Initiative, it is an outright lie for the appellant to say Waweru and Junet were the promoters,” he said.
“Though the handshake was packed as national unity, it was a Trojan horse packed as a unity package by the state to use execute power to amend the Constitution."
He argues that according to court documents, the secretariat is a business entity owned by Junet Mohamed and Denis Waweru.
“Denis Waweru and Junet Mohamed cannot be said to be the initiators of the process, it must be seen as the BBI Secretariat which is an initiative of BBI steering committee,” he said.
He further argued that as petitioners they felt that there was threat to this Constitution and that is why they moved to court.
