The incoming Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has said that they are not bothered that their main opponent Raila Odinga declined to attend their inauguration at Kasarani.
Speaking in Karen, ahead of the ceremony, Gachagua said that the former prime minister is the least of their worries and he is free to do whatever he wishes to since he is a senior citizen.
“I don’t think Raila Odinga is one of our concerns. We have a country to run, we have Kshs10 trillion public debt, 14 million Kenyans on CRB, 6 million unemployed Kenyans, imaginable prices of food commodities, where would we get time to bother about Raila. He is Kenyan, a senior citizen who is free to do what he wants. He is not among our priorities. We don’t want to get involved in sideshows by what he is saying that he will come or not come,” Gachagua said.
He however noted that the Kenya Kwanza government will accord him respect but they expect that he will take up his oversight roles as an opposition leader.
“We don’t want a situation where we have a one-party state. We don’t want a situation where Uhuru swallowed the opposition and we have a mockrel of a government. We are happy to have a working opposition. I invite Raila Odinga and the Azimio group to take up their role and oversight us and call us out when we are out of order and make suggestions on how we should make this country better,” Gachagua said.
Raila said that he will not be attending the swearing in ceremony because he is out of the country and also that he had serious concerns about the same.
“First, I believe that IEBC, the body in charge of our elections, did not conduct a free and fair election. Secondly, I believe the ruling of the Supreme Court was not based on facts and the law, even though we accepted it, ” Raila said in response to the inauguration invitation, adding that he will be giving a way forward once he returns to the country.
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