Nyamira Governor Amos Nyaribo is awaiting his fate on whether his impeachment case will proceed after Speaker Amason Kingi allowed his preliminary objection.
The Senate is set to consider and determine a Preliminary Objection, a decision that will determine whether the proceedings continue or are halted.
Nyaribo, through his legal team, has already raised an objection seeking to stop the process, arguing that the impeachment does not meet the required threshold.
Through his legal team, led by Advocate Elias Mutuma, Nyaribo has urged Senators not to allow the Motion to proceed.
“What you have is a lifeless Motion that cannot be entertained. Senators have many important matters to attend to rather than deal with this stillborn issue,” Mutuma submitted.
Nyaribo denied all charges brought against him by the Nyamira County Assembly.
Appearing before the Senate plenary on the first day of hearings into his proposed removal from office through impeachment, Nyaribo denied all accusations as read to him by the Senate Deputy Clerk, Mohamed Ali.
Consequently, Kingi has directed that Senators debate and vote on the motion.
If Senators vote to uphold the objection, then Nyaribo will have survived the impeachment without undergoing a full trial.
The Speaker said that the manner of proceeding to the vote will be by a Motion moved in the usual manner after a Notice of Motion has been given, adding that debate will ensue in the usual manner, and the vote will be taken upon the conclusion of debate.
“To this end, I have directed the Clerk of the Senate to prepare and circulate a Supplementary Order Paper containing a Notice of Motion and the Motion limited to the preliminary objection on the threshold that was required for this impeachment,” he said.
“If the preliminary issue is upheld, this impeachment shall terminate forthwith. If, however, the preliminary issue is negated, the Senate will proceed to the main hearing of the impeachment proceedings,” Speaker Kingi stated in his communication.
Nyaribo, through his lawyers, raised the preliminary objection on grounds that the Nyamira County Assembly did not meet the constitutional threshold of two-thirds to pass the motion.
According to Mutuma, the County Assembly of Nyamira comprises 35 members and therefore the requisite two-thirds majority for a valid impeachment resolution was 24 MCAs.
The counsel further submitted that the official record of the sitting of the County Assembly held on November 25, 2025, confirmed that only 19 members were physically present in the Assembly chamber.
In his application, Nyaribo’s lawyer stated that despite this, the Assembly recorded 23 votes in favour of the Motion and that this was numerically impossible, and that to him, this demonstrated that improper and fraudulent voting had occurred.
He contended that as the membership of the Nyamira County Assembly is 35 members and as two-thirds of 35 is 23.33, this can only be rounded off to 24 members.
Nyaribo told Senators that the County Assembly’s argument that the three vacancies in the Assembly reduced the quota of all the members, from 35 to 32, was legally flawed and absurd.
The Assembly, through their clerk, in a response, argued that when the Constitution and the County Governments Act imposed the requirement of two-thirds, this could only refer to two-thirds of the members present at any particular time.
Nyaribo’s lawyers further told the Senate that voting by proxy was alien to the County Assembly procedures, illegal, and null and void.
Mutuma stated that no authority was granted by any member to vote on their behalf by proxy and that the four MCAs in whose names proxy votes were recorded had provided sworn statements confirming that they were neither present in the Assembly nor did they issue any authority, written or otherwise, for any member to vote on their behalf.
The Governor referred to the standing order 67 of the Nyamira County Assembly Standing Orders, which requires that decisions of the Assembly be made by members present and voting.
He argued that the act of proxy voting was expressly prohibited and was a nullity, as it contravened Standing Order 67 of the Nyamira County Assembly Standing Orders and the principles of representative democracy.
“It was Counsel’s case that the unauthorised casting of votes in the names of absent members without their authority constituted fraudulent misrepresentation, forgery, and impersonation, further vitiating the entire process,” Kingi’s communication states.
