Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has dismissed reports that he is the biggest loser after the collapse of BBI where Court of Appeal upheld a High Court ruling that declared the Building Bridges Initiative bill illegal.
In a televised interview on Tuesday, August 24, Uhuru who was among the promoters of the bill expressed his dissatisfaction with the Court of Appeal judgment saying the judges have denied Kenyans something that would have not only improved their livelihoods but also made the country more cohesive.
“I respect the rule of law, even with BBI judgment, I accept and move on. But I do not agree with it as we have denied Kenyans the resources, equity, funds to go to grassroots and that is what Kenyans have lost. As Uhuru, I have not lost anything,” Uhuru said.
Uhuru rubbished claims by a section of those against the flopped plan to amend Kenya’s 2010 constitution led by his deputy William Ruto that the bill was seeking to extend his regime as the Head of State.
“BBI had nothing to do with Uhuru wanting to continue serving as President because there is no clause in BBI that says that the incumbent President is going to continue for another ten years,
“This is all propaganda and hype that is built to poison the people’s minds, and to make them deviate from looking at the real facts,
“..at the end of the day, who are the people who suffer when we have political problems? It is not the elite. It is the masses, who are the people who are denied resources,
“When we don’t deal with these issues of inequity, it is the people, not the elite, who bear the brunt,” the president went on.
A seven-judge bench of the Court of Appeal on Friday, August 20, upheld the High Court judgment that the BBI process was illegal, unconstitutional, null, and void.
“The president does not have authority under the Constitution to initiate changes to the Constitution,” Court of Appeal President Daniel Musinga said in the reading the majority ruling.
Uhuru Kenyatta joins a list of his fellow BBI proponents like Raila Odinga who have accepted to move on after the collapse of BBI, signaling there will be no one moving to challenge the judgment at the highest court o the land- the Supreme Court.
Uhuru’s deputy, William Ruto, on the other hand, rejoiced at the judgment saying the planned amendments to the 2010 constitution were a dangerous thing to the laws of the land as it would bring back an imperial president.
