Minister says MP "should be jailed'

Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu “belongs to jail”, an assistant minister has said.

Addressing a news conference at Parliament buildings Tuesday, Defence assistant minister Joseph Nkaissery called for the arrest and prosecution of Mr Waititu saying his remarks were “outrageous and bordered on incitement”.

The MP said Mr Waititu’s call to have the Maasai community kicked out of Embakasi constituency was “criminal”.

“This man belongs to jail. He belongs to the (police) cells. We don’t believe in apologies anymore. What Waititu said borders on putting this country into (chaos). Just imagine the Kikuyus living in Maralal, Narok, in Kajiado and all over the country, he’s endangering his own community… We don’t want an apology. We want the police to arrest him, take him to court and he should be jailed,” said Mr Nkaissery.

Mr Nkaissery said Mr Waititu should also be fired from the government, because he had a “record of criminal conduct, of throwing stones at his constituents, and pulling down people’s property”.

Mr Waititu is the assistant minister of Water.

“He should have been removed (from government) long time ago. This is a coalition government where we’re playing games with the Kenyans. Wrong people are occupying the right positions. Those wrong people should be removed, so that this country goes in the right direction.

"Mr Waititu was appointed not because he was competent…if he can hurl stones at the fellows who elected him, what kind of leader is he?” posed Mr Nkaissery.

Criminal activity

Mr Nkaissery said that the branding that Mr Waititu gave the Maasai community as “thieves”, just because one person was involved in criminal activity should be “condemned”.

“If one criminal does a crime, that’s not a community problem. That individual should be dealt with as per the law,” said the Defence assistant minister.

He said “Nairobi belonged to the Maa community”, yet the Maasai had lived with every Kenyan in harmony. Mr Nkaissery added that the law allows any Kenyan to live anywhere within the country, and the call to “uproot the Maasai” from Nairobi that Mr Waititu made, was “terribly bad”.

Mr Nkaissery said the lawmakers from the Maasai community were outraged by the remarks.

The assistant minister said he had already spoken to Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere, and asked him to take action. He said some politicians had asked Mr Waititu to apologise publicly to let the matter rest, but Mr Nkaissery said an apology was no longer tenable.

"Forget about mad people and statements from mad criminals. You cannot have a leader trying to urge a community to remove another one, especially at this (electioneering) time, when we must preach for peace and stability of this nation,” said Mr Nkaissery.

He said that such statements coming from a person who wants to be a governor for the city of Nairobi in the next elections, were pointer that if he had the power “he could mobilise the security forces to kick out a whole community”.

The Defence assistant minister asked the National Cohesion and Integration Commission to act on the hate speech committed by his government colleague.