Narc Kenya party leader Martha Karua has explained why she walked out of former President Daniel Moi's event on June 16, 2001.
Karua, then Gichungu MP, said she was fed up with the remarks made during President Moi's meeting which she graced.
"There was nothing else in my mind except the fury I was feeling at the time," she said.
Karua explained that despite being in the opposition, she had welcomed Moi to the event as she recognised him as president.
She stated that she was the only opposition leader present as her colleagues had boycotted.
The trigger, Karua said, was the remarks made by Moi's local chairman and subsequently, the former President’s reaction.
Karua narrated that the said chairman began insulting the opposition, talking about how would-be Moi’s successor Mwai Kibaki could never head the country as president.
Fed up with the attack, Karua said she sought Moi's intervention to have the chairman stopped from making the remarks even as she expressed disappointment that the Former Late President had allowed the chairman to disparage Kibaki.
"I demanded that he either stop him or he give me five minutes to defend my party,” she said.
Karua said Moi asked her what she would tell the public if allowed to address them, to which she assured that though she would not let him know what she was to say, she would give him due respect as the head of state.
"I saw his body language, he told me "tutaona" but I knew he wouldn’t. So I just surveyed how the lay of the ground was. I saw there was one entrance and exit next to his podium," she said.
Consequently, Karua said she made up her mind to leave the event, a decision that came with some calculation on the exit plan.
"I could not walk behind him as it would look like I wanted to attack him. I surveyed another exit and decided I would leave during Moi's address," she said.
"I gave him a minute to get to his podium and I took my bags, went in front of him DP salute and I swaggered off."
She explained that then, she held her right-hand fist high to demonstrate her allegiance to the Democratic Party.
"That was like telling Moi 'I'm DP (a political party). Because the law entitles me to be," she said.
