A member of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) taskforce has claimed that the team was ambushed and forced to sign the Document before it was handed To President Uhuru Kenyatta.
In a move that could bring to test the credibility of the report, Maj (Rtd) John Seii said officials of the 14-member taskforce were shocked after they were called on a Friday and asked to sign the prepared draft that was expected to be handed over to the two proponents of the initiative.
“We had no time to go through the document and the 14 of us looked at each other in total disbelief when we were asked to sign the final BBI draft that was set to be handed over to President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga,” said Seii.
He said they ought to have been called at least on a Wednesday for them to have more time to go through the final draft before signing it.
Seii added: “The document had been well-prepared and what was left is for us to sign. I had expected we be called on a Wednesday so that we can review its content first. The experts, however, told us nothing had been changed, and we had to sign in trust.”
Seii, who spoke on a local vernacular station yesterday, said the team of experts told the 14-member taskforce that they were respected and nothing had been changed.
Seii, the Emeritus chair of the Kalenjin Council of Elders (Myoot), said the original document that had been prepared and launched in Bomas in November 2019 had been summarised.
Seii said the addition of 70 more constituencies was inserted without their knowledge, in addition to other major changes – hardly ‘tweaks’.
“In our minds, we had heard the call from Kenyans to Kupunguza Mzigo. The donkey is tired and should be relived and if not so, then do not add more burden.
“Then we saw the introduction of 70 MPs. Then we asked, where did the 70 come from? Who said this county should get them and the others will not get them,” he asked.
However, BBI joint secretary Paul Mwangi, termed “shocking” Seii’s claims of tampering to suit political interests, saying the country’s leadership never interfered with the task force’s work.
“The allegations made by John Seii are shocking because we followed the same protocols that we had agreed on. The protocol was always that after discussions, we would go for a retreat and reach a decision on every matter,” he said.
Mwangi said that before the report was submitted they all met again and read the report and confirmed it is what was agreed on before it was submitted to President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“I do not know what the purpose of making those allegations was. It looks like the purpose is to add to the trashing of the report,” Mwangi said.
Seii claimed a high-level meeting allegedly attended by Raila and Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho three days to the Kisii event pressured them to sign the report containing new elements they had not seen.
Speaking at the Kalenjin vernacular radio station Emoo FM on Thursday, Seii said they agreed to sign because Raila’s presence gave them confidence that all was well.
“Raila and PS Kibicho came to the Friday meeting in Kisii so we saw the weightiness of it and we had been assured that there were no changes [to the first BBI report].
“We reached a level of giving them the benefit of doubt. So we concluded that because Raila and Kibicho were there, let’s believe they are telling us the truth,” he said.
Seii further said task force members who tried to question the hurried signing of the report before they could read it were assured by the secretariat that it was the original version unveiled at Bomas last December.
He claimed, for instance, task force member Dr Florence Omose was adamant she would not sign the report. However, he said he saw similarities between her signature and that of James Matundura.
“Omose declined to sign, arguing that she cannot sign what she had not seen. She was talked to until she accepted to sign, albeit with reservations. She asked why she was not given a chance to go through it first,” he said.
Seii said some members of the task force felt betrayed.
Task force member James Matundura disagreed with Seii saying the final BBI report contained the proposals they had agreed on at the steering committee.
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“I am a Christian and I have to be brutally honest, nothing new was introduced into the report, it was actually a presentation of all our deliberations 100 per cent,” he told the Star.
Matundura, who is the Kisii Council of Elders chairman, dismissed as “irresponsible and reckless” Seii’s claims that some members were forced to sign the final report.
“We were all there and Seii was there, nobody forced anyone to sign the report, we all signed willingly without any pressure,” Matundura said.
Seii, former chairman of the Kalenjin Council of Elders, said when they were asked to go to the people for a second time, he realised something was amiss.
“Instead of the task force visiting people to carry out validation, we were taken aback that the validation was to be done differently in political rallies,” he said.
The former military man said the hiring of 35 experts to draft the final report was partisan, with only two Kalenjins.
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