A section of Kenyans in the diaspora have petitioned the Building Bridges Initiative team BBI to delay releasing it’s final report until all Kenyans agree to amend the 2010 constitution.
The Yusuf Haji-led commission is expected to hand over the report to President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga.
According to Commonwealth Voter Privileges Right Association, a lobby of Kenyans living in diaspora, certain groups and certain elected leaders were denied a chance to participate in the process.
“It would be necessary to allow debate on all the issues that arose during the Building Bridges Initiative public meetings before coming up with conclusive report of what the public really want as the final outcome,” the group says in a petition to BBI team.
In the petition, the group cites the 2005 referendum that its outcome divided the country.
“We to bring to your attention of dispute that arose after the 2005 referendum. We do not want a process that would leave Kenyans more divided,” Mr David Kimengere Waititu, the association's Organising secretary told the Nation . According to him, certain groups and individuals were denied equal chance to contribute to the process.
“At the end, this will result to a badly contested referendum and create a poisoned society ahead of the 2022 general elections,” he says. The group further cites the strained relations between the Executive and the Judiciary and the fall out in the ruling Jubilee party over the process as a matter of concern.
“It is our view that no proposal has been handed over to your team in order to fix the simmering tensions between the two Arms of Government and between the two leaders of the Executive,” the petition states.
In the petition copied to speaker of the National Assembly and the Senate, the group warns that rushing the process further complicate the exercise and compound the issues that need to be resolved.
A bad ending, will not give Kenyans a solution to the historical differences that create skirmishes in every election cycle since the year 1992, the lobby warns in the petition.
“In this regard it is our view that the process be suspended and as a team the BBI should mid-wife a meeting between the proponents of the process and their opponents together with all stakeholders in a conference to iron out all contested issues,” Mr Kimengere said.
