MPs claim opposition leader plotting to topple Kenyan government

yinka ogunlami

December 19, 2016 1:11 PM

Kenyan Opposition leader Raila Odinga (above) had said that President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto should have been locked up by the ICC prior to the last polls.

Members of Parliament from the ruling Jubilee Party in Kenya have claimed that the opposition leader Raila Odinga is planning to topple the government.

Led by the Leader of Majority in Parliament, Aden Duale, the MPs claim that Raila is stirring up the International Criminal Court (ICC) issue to bring about regime change in Kenya.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto had earlier been indicted by the ICC in the run up to the last general elections in 2013.

However their cases along with four others collapsed at The Hague after the judges ruled they had no cases to answer as a result of insufficient evidence presented by the prosecution which was headed first by Louis Moreno Ocampo and later Fatou Bensouda.

Earlier this week, Raila had issued a strongly worded statement saying that the President and his deputy should have been locked up by the ICC prior to the last polls.

They further claimed that Raila was working with foreign powers in a bid to assume power through the back door.

During the Independence Day celebrations on Monday, President Uhuru warned Kenyans that foreign countries were planning to influence the outcome of the polls by funding shadowy projects.

"There is already money coming into Kenya from abroad in the guise of supporting good governance or civic education. However, its true intention is to influence our electoral choices," he said.

The pro-government MPs described the opposition leader as a man who was so greedy for power that he would do anything, including getting Kenyans to fight each other, to assume power.

They asked Raila to accept the dismissal of their cases at the International Criminal Court and “move on”.

Raila had said the ICC had allowed itself to be blackmailed by Kenya as he warned that African countries must not quit the International Criminal Court because the continent is “the biggest violator currently of human rights”.

“No African head of State needs to fear being tried by the court because you can destroy the evidence, you can kill witnesses,” he said during an interview with AFP in France.

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