Task force says 5.2m BBI signatures collected as drive ends

The Building Bridges Initiative Task Force had collected 5.2 million signatures by close of the exercise on Friday.

ODM leader Raila Odinga, who received the figures from the task force on Friday, said the hardest part in ensuring a better future for Kenya has just begun, with proponents of the document now expected to spread the BBI gospel across the country.

“I appeal to naysayers who claim to be speaking for the people to realise that the people have spoken and let them continue speaking for themselves. Over five million Kenyans have appended their signatures endorsing the BBI process. The journey continues,” he said.

The politician received signature booklets from 13 counties from the BBI Secretariat at a ceremony at Daraja House in Nairobi.

The former prime minister said President Uhuru Kenyatta could not attend the event because he was at another government function.

“The President and I agreed that he would go for another function with the governors while I would come here,” he said.

Verification

Mr Odinga announced that the signature collection drive has been closed to pave way for the verification exercise by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the team having surpassed the constitutional threshold of a million signatures required for the document to proceed to county assemblies.

The BBI Secretariat headed by Suna East MP Junet Mohammed and former Dagoretti South MP Dennis Waweru will verify the signatures and forward them to the electoral agency.

“The signatures will be processed within three days and a form presented to the IEBC for validation,” said Mr Waweru.

He said they are confident the referendum process will be smooth .

“We don’t expect challenges with the IEBC since we earlier engaged the commission on the format to use to present the signatures for verification. We expect the IEBC to validate them within two weeks,” he said.