Sack Namwamba, members demand

UNWANTED: Legal Affairs Committee chair Ababu Namwamba whom the members want out.

SEVEN members of the Committee of Legal Affairs and Administration of Justice yesterday wrote a letter to the National Assembly clerk seeking for an urgent meeting to sack Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba as committee chairman.
In a letter dated February 21 the MPs accuse Namwamba of running the committee like personal property and want him replaced. The letter was written after a strategy meeting of PNU and ODM rebel MPs at the Panafric Hotel co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and former Higher Education Minister William Ruto approved the removal of Namwamba as chairman of the committee.
A Cabinet minister who attended the meeting yesterday told the Star that MPs supporting Uhuru and Ruto are bitter with Namwamba for allegedly embarrassing the President by commissioning the admission of the minority’s view in his committee report. “We want him ejected because we feel that the President must be respected. He acted in total disregard of the office of the President and so he must suffer," said an MP from South Rift.
The seven members want Namwamba replaced by either Chepalungu MP Isaac Rutto or his Saboti counterpart Eugene Wamalwa. While Rutto has no background in law he is campaigning for the seat on the platform of being an ODM member as Eugene belong to PNU. The seat was negotiated for Namwamba to resolve a standoff over the leadership of the committee.
In the letter the group cited standing order number 175, “By a resolution supported by a majority of its members, a committee may resolve that it has no confidence in chairperson or vice chairperson and such resolution shall be reported to the liaison committee which shall, as soon as it is practicable, arrange for the election of a new chairperson or vice-chairperson as the case may be”.
The letter which has also been copied to Namwamba was signed by MPs Mutava Musyimi (Gachoka), Abdikadir Mohamed (Mandera Central), Njoroge Baiyia (Githunguri), Amina Abdala (nominated) and George Nyamweya (nominated). Eugene and Rutto have also signed the letter.
Namwamba sided with nominated MP Millie Odhiambo and Kisumu Town West MP Olago Aluoch in opposing President Kibaki’s nominees for the offices of the Chief Justice, Attoney General, Director of Public Prosecutions and Controller of Budget.
The committee was directed by Speaker Kenneth Marende to conduct an inquiry into the nominations which were widely criticised.