{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Waiguru censure attempt returns to haunt Linturi, rattles coalition - Politics - nation.co.ke
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Waiguru censure attempt returns to haunt Linturi, rattles coalition - Politics
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Since June 12 last year, the day he abandoned his attempt to have MPs ask the President to sack Devolution and Planning Secretary Anne Waiguru, Igembe South MP Mithika Linturi has been a man under a heavy cloud of suspicion.
His colleagues, 150 of whom signed the petition, formed the impression that he had used their signatures for some personal gain and they left the chamber after the presentation of the Budget chanting "Linturi must go".
That he had become unpopular with his colleagues became most evident at the retreat of the Jubilee Coalition Parliamentary Group at the Great Rift Valley Lodge earlier this year.
Mr Linturi is the author of a Bill aimed at making the President immune from prosecution, even by an international court, and he was shouted down four separate times, the last time with President Kenyatta present in the room as the Jubilee leadership sought to give him a chance to make a presentation.
A few weeks later, MPs threatened to reject the House Business Committee supposedly because Mr Linturi and Ms Gladys Wanga, the Homa Bay Woman Representative, were on the list.
But the claims against the outspoken Igembe South representative appeared to have gained credence when the list of suspects under investigation for corruption was revealed and the Deputy President's Chief of Staff was on it. Ms Marianne Kittany "stepped aside" because of allegations that she had diverted Sh100 million to bribe MPs while pushing for the motion against Ms Waiguru and that she irregularly spent Sh100 million to renovate the Deputy President's office.
Angered by murmurs that he may have been the conduit between Ms Kittany and the MPs, Mr Linturi has opened up on circumstances that led to his withdrawal of the impeachment motion. On Thursday, he sensationally linked Majority Leaders Aden Duale (National Assembly) and Prof Kindiki Kithure (Senate) and National Assembly Government Chief Whip Katoo ole Metito to the motion.
Mr Linturi further claimed that two chairmen of parastatals from central Kenya also approached him to drop the motion but he declined.
"I met a son of one of the parastatal bosses in Kileleshwa who later fixed a meeting with his father who he said made it clear to me that it was wrong to rock Jubilee from within," the MP said.
This had been preceded by another plea from an abrasive governor from central Kenya at the Jacaranda Hotel, he said.
"They all tried to buy me to make a U-turn but I declined."
He names MPs such as Kimani Ngunjiri, Kanini Kega, Kimani Ichungwa, Alice Ng'ang'a and Gideon Mwiti as having been present when he signed the withdrawal letter. The minister is also said to have met a number of Jubilee MPs at Holiday Inn hotel in an attempt to shoot down the motion.
Mr Linturi narrated the dramatic turn of events that led to the withdrawal, claiming the withdrawal letter was drafted by Solicitor-General Njee Muturi after the Presidency became impatient with him over his reluctance to heed the call to withdraw the motion.
President Uhuru Kenyatta's personal aide Jomo Gecaga is then said to have delivered the letter to the National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi on a Wednesday night, just hours to the scheduled debate on the motion.
"I honoured an invite by the two gentlemen to Jacaranda Hotel where a letter withdrawing the motion had been drafted by Njee (the Solicitor-General). After signing it, Jomo took it to the Speaker. The question of receiving money does not arise here," he said.
The letter was presented to Mr Muturi hours to the day MPs were set to debate the motion, in effect scuttling it. But before that, Mr Linturi had met Ms Waiguru in the company of Runyenjes MP Cecily Mbarire and Maara MP Kareke Mbiuki on Lenana Road to try and convince him to drop the motion which was increasingly gaining support from both the government and opposition.
The MP stood his ground that it took Mr Kenyatta's personal plea to have him unclench his fist.
"The President prevailed upon me to drop the matter. The understanding then was that Cord would use the opportunity to destabilise the government; remember Okoa Kenya had just been launched on Saba Saba day," he stated.
Mr Linturi says he offered to lift the lid on the behind-the-scenes haggling that saw Ms Waiguru escape censure by a whisker to silence rumours that he received money from the DP's office to proceed with his motion.
"Now I look bad in the eyes of the public. The impression created is that I was given money. This is a baggage I have carried for seven months now but I have no regret because it was a cause for which I was persuaded but my respect for the President carried the day," he said.
The MP was on Thursday jeered by his colleagues from the opposition when he entered the chambers. They accused him of cowardice after allegedly being compromised.
In the wake of the report from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission that has implicated Ms Kittany, Jubilee allied MPs are now asking whether Mr Linturi was acting on instructions from the DP to "discipline" the powerful minister after she transferred Mr Kiplimo Rugut from the helm of the National Youth Service and replaced him with Mr Nelson Githinji.
The matter is a potential tipping point that can easily strain the relationship between the DP's URP party and TNA, the two principal affiliates of the ruling Jubilee alliance.
Whereas the DP came out to rebuke MPs who were baying for the minister's blood, questions are now lingering whether this was a show for the cameras when, in private, he was urging on the renegade lawmakers.
"Leave Waiguru alone. Appointments and transfers are done by the Public Service Commission, the President and myself. If you have any questions about Kiplimo Rugut, ask me or the President, not Waiguru. Mambo ya kufuata mtu mdogo wacheni kabisa (stop pursuing our juniors)," Mr Ruto said.
While Mr Njee and Mr Gecaga could not be reached for comment, ole Metito accused Mr Linturi of misrepresenting facts and wants him to clarify his statement.
"Of course when he narrated to us the secret dealings behind the motion, we could not believe it. However, what needs to be clear is that the meeting which took place in my office had got nothing to do with the impeachment motion.
"If you check your records, you will realise that the meeting was about supporting the President's decision to honour legally binding payments to Anglo-Leasing contracts," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Kithure Kindiki laughed off the claims and wondered how he would have been involved in a matter that was being handled by the National Assembly.
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