Hundreds of Garissa
residents turned up at the government guest house during the public
participation forum on the proposed removal from office by impeachment of the
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
Majority supported the
motion against the DP on grounds of promoting ethnic discrimination and
undermining national unity through divisive public statements.
Hassan Osman Shurie,
Garissa Peace Committee secretary said that it was unfortunate to see the route
the DP had taken, accusing him of balkanization.
The DP remains
innocent until proven guilty of all the accusations leveled against him both in
the impeachment motion and by the public through their views at the forums.
“The deputy president seems
not to respect the presidency which is a symbol of unity. For this reason, I’m totally
supporting the impeachment motion,” Shurie said.
Libahasigale MCA,
Ahmed Sheikh, said that the DP had “crossed the line” with his tribal
utterances saying that time has come for him to go home.
“I cannot
comment on the other grounds since they require investigations by the relevant
authorities to ascertain the claims but on the issue of tribalism, it is an
open secret that he has been very vocal about it and as Kenyans we are not
happy with him,” he said.
He continued: “We are
very much concerned about the utterances of the person of the DP’s standing in
the society. He seems so determined to isolate his people who hail from the Mt Kenya
region. Here in Garissa, the Kikuyu are our brothers and sisters and we work
with them in their businesses,” Sheikh said.
On her part, nominated
MCA Khadija Farah said that they had no problem with members of the Kikuyu
community.
“Majority of the
people of the Mountain are good people and they want the unity of the country.
We have had presidents from them and we don’t want a person who is going to
mess up the progress this country has achieved and that is why we want the
deputy president to go,” he added.
Dubat Amey, an elder, said
that the fact that majority of MPs who are representatives of the people
appended their signatures supporting the motion was a clear testimony that the
Deputy President must be discussed.
“As an elder of this
country, I must admit that I’m disappointed by the DP’s actions and utterances.
He abused the responsibility he was entrusted with by Kenyans. Instead of being
a unifying factor and a symbol of unity, he acted the opposite by acting as
regional kingpin for the Mt Kenya region,” he said.
While the majority of
the citizens were in support of the impeachment motion, some of them were of
the view that the impeachment motion was immature and that if someone must be
impeached, the President and the Deputy President should be impeached together.
Gachagua stands
accused of 11 violations, including breach of the constitution, corruption and
incitement.
He is also accused of
contradicting government policies and failing to uphold his duties as Deputy
President, particularly in relation to collective Cabinet responsibility.