Embakasi North MP and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s ally James Gakuya on Friday claimed that Members of Parliament who voted โYesโ toย Gachaguaโs impeachment motionย were bribed with Ksh500,000.[โฆ]CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLEโถ
Speaking during an interview with K24 this morning, Gakuya said that he had credible reports that the 282 MPs were asked to remain behind after the house business was done.
However, despite making allegations that MPs received text messages asking them to remain behind, Gakuya refused to show the message he was purporting and also to name the individual who sent it.
When asked if he knew how much each MP was given Gakuya said, โIt was like Ksh500,000. The majority got Ksh500,000 I donโt know if there was discrimination of different figures but the one who told me what he was getting was Ksh500,000. I donโt expect that there could be two tiers.โ
The impeachment of Gachagua by the National Assembly on October 8 took the country by storm with Parliament reporting one of its highest attendance.
A staggering 282 MPs affiliated with different parties voted in support of the motion with only 44 voting dissenting. The impeachment advanced to the Senate which will determine Gachagua’s fate next week.
Gachaguaโs defense which was first aired for all Kenyans in a 90-minute broadcast the day before the impeachment hearing in the National Assembly was not enough to save him from the members of parliament.
One of his biggest accusations laid against him was that he had accumulated a wealth of Ksh5.2 billion through unscrupulous means during the first two years of his term, an allegation that he vehemently denied alleging that most of the property being purported to be his was indeed his late brotherโs Nderitu Gachagua.
In the heated debate leading up to the voting, most MPs also buckled down to the tribalism allegations brought against the DP insisting that there was no place for most of his utterances alienated other parts of the country from the Mount Kenya region where he hails from.
Not even theย countrywide public participationย could save him as the majority 41% supported the motion countrywide with 38% opposing it coming a close second. However, the Mount Kenya region recorded a whopping 68% opposing the motion in its entirety.
On Wednesday and Thursday next week, the Senate will hear the impeachment motion against the deputy president in a plenary sitting after a motion to form an 11-member committee raised by Senate majority leader Aaron Cheruiyot was dismissed after failing to get a seconder.
DP Gachagua will be allowed witnesses this time as confirmed by speaker Amason Kingi, โThe Senate, being the trial chamber, will be sitting as a quasi-judicial body to hear and determine the Deputy President’s matter.”
The Senate will then discuss the motion, after which they will decide whether there are enough grounds to impeach the Deputy President. If he is impeached by the senate too, Gachagua has the option to take the matter to the courtsโฆCLICK HERE TO READ MORE ARTICLES>>>ย
