ODM Director of Communications Philip Etale has called on Kenyans to ignore a video of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga criticising National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula.
According to Etale, the video that has been going viral is old and Kenyans should ignore it.
He noted that the video was taken at the funeral of late politician Lawrence Sifuna last year.
“The video doing rounds of Raila Odinga talking about Speaker @HonWetangula is an old video. He made the remarks during the funeral of the late Hon. Lawrence Sifuna in 2023. Ignore it,” Etale said.
The video surfaced after reports claimed that there was a plan to have Wetang’ula removed as Speaker of the National Assembly.
The reports said that the plan was to have him replaced by a member of the ODM party as speaker of parliament.
In the video, Raila is seen calling out Wetang’ula of being biased in delivering his duties as Speaker of the National Assembly.
He says Wetang’ula could not continue to be the Speaker if he remained the party leader of the Ford Kenya party.
“The Speaker must be somebody who is neutral. The Speaker must be non-partisan. You cannot remain a leader or member of the Conservative Party or Labour Party. You have to resign from the party position to be a neutral Speaker. If you want to be a good speaker you must resign from being a leader of Ford Kenya. Then you can be a neutral Speaker and you can be able to preside over deliberations of parliament in a neutral way,” the former Prime Minister is heard saying.
Social media users and bloggers have used the old video as grounds for claims that there is a plan to remove Wetang’ula as Speaker.
The claims followed the impeachment of former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua by the National Assembly and the Senate.
He was accused of bullying and violation of the Constitution and corruption.
