Why Speaker Muturi must take the blame for Parliament’s day of shame

Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi during the vetting of Interior Cabinet secretary nominee Joseph Nkaisery at County Hall on December 11, 2014. Ravenous MPs may be using committees to run extortion schemes and bribery rings, says National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA |

What you need to know:

  • In a House where the Speaker is rarely criticised, Mr Muturi has been questioned and defied at every turn by MPs, especially from the opposition Cord.
  • Political analyst Adams Oloo agrees and told the Sunday Nation the Speaker should probably have paid more attention to what TNA nominated MP Johnson Sakaja suggested should take place.
  • It did not help that the media was prevented from accessing the Press Gallery, the Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit was ordered to shut off the live transmission and the public kept away from Parliament.
  • If he remains Speaker, Dr Oloo said the best thing for Mr Muturi to do is, “reflect and always remember he was Jubilee before his election but not anymore now.”

Kenya is at a crossroads. Never before in the country’s history has Parliament been so desecrated by the men and women who have sworn to uphold its dignity under the well-crafted motto: For the Welfare of Society and the Just Government of Men.

Tongues are still wagging at the scale of unprecedented chaos that broke out in the august House startling the entire nation and eroding honour from an institution regarded as the custodian of democracy.

At one point on Thursday afternoon, when it became apparent that Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) MPs were keen on getting the third reading of the Security Laws Amendment Act stopped, Majority Leader Aden Duale rose to speak.

He is always given priority to speak by virtue of his position and his microphone was switched on. He was heckled in the usual manner and did the customary thing, which was to ask the Speaker to have the MPs stop it.

SPEAKER QUESTIONED
As he asked the Speaker to protect him, MPs on the Cord side replied instantly: “He can’t.”

The MPs later demonstrated their lack of respect for Speaker Justin Muturi more strongly and openly when he took over the Committee of the Whole House and led proceedings at this last stage of the Bill’s passage, shouting over the din as the clauses were amended and passed.

In a House where the Speaker is rarely criticised, Mr Muturi has been questioned and defied at every turn by MPs, especially from the opposition Cord, and the culmination of this was the tossing of one of the heavy law volumes at the dispatch box as he struggled to have the Bill passed.

The orderlies blocked other missiles and he operated under a protective shield.

Worse things may have happened after the Parliamentary Broadcast Unit was given orders, “from above”, to stop live broadcast of proceedings.

Mbita MP Millie Odhiambo-Mabona said on her Facebook page, “When they tried to undress me I completed the process for them.”

SAKAJA STEPPED UP
Thursday was, to many observers, Parliament’s worst day in its history.

According to former Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara, Mr Muturi should have done a better job.

“I served in the Speaker’s Panel under both Francis ole Kaparo and Kenneth Marende and I can assure you this would never have happened.

The Speaker, to beat a deadline imposed on him by the Executive, deliberately refused to adjourn the House, as is demanded by the Standing Orders in situations such as Thursday’s and is, therefore, 90 per cent to blame for the shameful spectacle,” said Mr Imanyara.

“He ought not to stay in office one day longer,” he added.

Political analyst Adams Oloo agrees and told the Sunday Nation the Speaker should probably have paid more attention to what TNA nominated MP Johnson Sakaja suggested should take place.

Before the chaos broke out in the afternoon, Mr Sakaja turned to his Jubilee colleagues and asked them to consider the views of the Minority and asked the Speaker to adjourn the sitting for a while for MPs to have an informal session where the issues could be ironed out and a compromise reached.

“Johnson Sakaja spoke like a Speaker,” said Dr Oloo. “He came close to what a Speaker should do. The Speaker was like a man on a mission.”

“This was for them to have a Kamukunji. In the end, it was a shame for all of us,” he added.

MOST CONTROVERSIAL BILL
Mr Sakaja’s request was brushed aside and, before long, Cord MPs engaged their second option, which was to attempt to physically stop the Third Reading.

Some of them had prepared amendments to the Bill but that, they knew, would not have been enough because the Jubilee side enjoys a comfortable majority and can steamroll through anything they desire.

Although some of the amendments agreed to at a day-long meeting on Wednesday had been included in the Order Paper to be moved by National Security Committee chairman Asman Kamama and Samuel Chepkonga from the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, individual Cord MPs had more contributions, which they felt would have improved the Bill.

Cord MPs were also under instructions to oppose the Bill and the government amendments. 

Although the Bill was eventually passed, the ensuing bedlam was unprecedented, making it the year’s most controversial Bill.

It did not help that the media was prevented from accessing the Press Gallery, the Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit was ordered to shut off the live transmission and the public kept away from Parliament.

TAKE LEADERSHIP

Even MPs were not sure Thursday evening what had been passed, with Eldama Ravine MP Moses Lessonet reportedly getting angry because of the noise in the chamber and refusing to propose the amendments he had prepared, which were already on the Order Paper.

For the first time in decades, anti-riot police and plainclothes officers from the General Service Unit took charge at the reception area.

At one point, Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale was at the head of a scrum in the corridor, shouting as Cord senators attempted to storm the chamber, pushing and shoving with a phalanx of officers in helmets, protective clothing and clubs they use to repulse violent protesters such as university students. 

When the sitting ended, there was dancing, singing  and chanting at the reception area like a scene at an end-of-year party, only the songs were combative and insulting.

Although the combativeness rarely goes outside the House, it will be interesting to see how MPs will interact with each other and the Speaker when the House resumes business after the Christmas recess.

Mr Eric Mutua, the chairman of the Law Society of Kenya, said the whole incident “portrayed the House in very bad light”.

“It is the House people derive leadership from. The Speaker should take leadership of the House. Many MPs don’t take him seriously because he seems to lack Solomonic wisdom,” he added.

MARENDE DID A BETTER JOB
Before Thursday, Mr Muturi had not faced a momentous decision like his predecessor, Mr Marende.

Mr Marende was elected Speaker in January 2008 and thrown in the deep end, with his former ODM colleagues immediately launching into an argument about the legality of their swearing-in.

“Marende forgot immediately that he had been elected by ODM. ODM had agreed beforehand that they wouldn’t be sworn in but you saw that the first thing he did was to defy them,” said Dr Oloo.

The political science lecturer said that even as he ran a House with polarisation similar to the current one, Mr Marende did a better job, taking time to reflect on the rulings, holding back when handling touchy issues and ignoring or cleverly accommodating the views of his political friends.

Mr Mutua recalled: “Even during Kaparo’s time, as much as he was from the ruling party, he had respect from both sides of the House.”

Mr Muturi’s mistake appears to be his tendency to react quickly to the Opposition’s demands, getting into an exchange with them and shutting them off before they can finish speaking.

MPs from Cord also complain that he rarely gives them a chance to contribute to debate, although that could also be attributed to the large number of MPs in the 11th Parliament.

Mr Mutua said that from his perspective, the deterioration has been gradual, from the handling of the row between the two Houses over the Division of Revenue Bill last year to the making of rulings, which he said, does not go deep into issues and makes them appear small to summarily saying Bills should be handled by the National Assembly even before a panel from the two Houses has agreed.

MUTURI DEFENDED
Mr Muturi has in the past defended himself and described the comparison with Mr Marende as unfair because he is a Speaker under a different system of government.

Mr Duale also defended him at a press conference on Friday. “The Speaker did well considering the circumstances he was operating under,” Mr Duale said.

Mr Imanyara said the problem is, however, beyond Parliament and Mr Muturi.

“Ultimately the buck stops with the President,” he said. “He summoned his coalition and demanded the Bill for his signature ‘wapende wasipende’.

He encouraged them to disobey Standing Orders even as ‘Stranger’ Raila Odinga encouraged his troops in Cord to do the same. Both are guilty of driving the country into lawlessness.”

Help should also come from State House, said Mr Mutua, in the form of the President loosening his hold over the Speaker and letting him run the House independently. “The President should let him loose,” he said.

If he remains Speaker, Dr Oloo said the best thing for Mr Muturi to do is, “reflect and always remember he was Jubilee before his election but not anymore now.”