Siaya Senator James Orengo is cautioning civil servants within the government who are allegedly plotting the Uhuru Succession agenda.
Speaking in Ugenya constituency, Siaya County, when he attended the first anniversary memorial of late Kahawa Wendani MCA Cyrus Omondi, Orengo said, “Civil servants have no business to discuss and debate on political matters. I urge them to be compliant and obedient to the political institution.”
He added, “In this country, as President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga are busy with the Building Bridges, there is a cabal inside government who are busy chatting the way how Kenya will be ruled after the 2022 election.”
President Uhuru’s tenure is due in 2022. Politicians have started angling for the country’s top job, with UDA’s putative leader DP William Ruto seen as the candidate to beat.
However, the constitutional changes envisioned in the Building Bridges Initiative Bill, present an expanded Executive without a winner-take-all. In this arrangement, it is generally assumed that Senator Orengo’s party leader – ODM boss Raila Odinga – would be among the politicians getting one of the powerful posts.
“As a person who has witnessed how governments are run I want to say without fear of contradiction that whenever civil servants chart the future, there can never be any peace. This is a warning shot,” Orengo added.
It is not clear who Orengo was firing shots at. Two of the most powerful ‘civil servants’ in President Uhuru’s government are Interior PS Karanja Kibicho and his boss CS Fred Matiang’i.
“They (unnamed civil servants) are simply reaping where they have not sowed. Without Raila Odinga, they would not be planning of those successions and therefore they must listen to the two BBI principals,” Orengo said.
Political analysts are wondering whether Orengo’s sentiments are a cry by his party boss, and whether ODM- the ruling Jubilee party’s handshake partner- wants a bigger say in the BBI referendum.
He added: “In the previous referendum, we had Anyang Nyong’o of Kisumu and Kiraitu Murungi of Meru who were leading the process. But for BBI, the same cabal has closed the BBI secretariat and are now running BBI matters in their offices yet they are not mandated to,” he said.