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Azimio MCAs promise peaceful maandamano


As the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition resumes its weekly demonstrations, Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) in Nairobi have assured residents that the protests will be peaceful.

The assurance from Nairobi County Assembly Majority Leader Peter Imwatok Jateso comes hours after they met with Azimio leader Mr Raila Odinga.

He said the MCAs will weed out demonstrators who try to cause chaos, saying they know their supporters.

“Anybody who is found stealing from Kenyans and doing other things will not be part of Azimio. We will not allow anyone to destroy people’s businesses in the name of Azimio demonstration,” said Mr Imwatok.

He alleged that a section of leaders from the Kenyan Kwanza side, led by National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah and Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei, were planning to cause chaos during the demonstrations.

“We know people like Mr Ichung’wah and Samson Cherargei are planning their squad to cause fracas during our demonstrations but we will smoke them out and deal with them. We don’t want hate politics here, we will have peaceful demonstrations.

The Makongeni Ward representative added that during the recent peaceful demonstrations, he encountered youth who were taking part in stealing while demos were ongoing.

“We met some youth around former KBS bust stop who were stoning peoples’ businesses and we stopped them, even my arm is still itching after slapping one of them because cannot allow this to happen…as Nairobi leaders, we know those who don’t belong to this city, let everyone go and demonstrate at his town.”

The outspoken leader, who is a close ally Mr Odinga said the cost of living has been soaring since President William Ruto and his team came to office.

Mr Odinga, and former Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya had a breakfast meeting with a section of women leaders and Nairobi MCAs at the Pronto Restaurant in Nairobi CBD on Wednesday before addressing his supporters, where he asked them to turn out in numbers to protests against high cost of living.

In his address, Mr Odinga said that Azimio is now targeting to collect 15 million signatures from Kenyans as a sign of no confidence to the Kenya Kwanza administration.

He also dismissed calls from a section of leaders to have him arrested, saying that he was paying attention to the calls from Kenyans who can no longer cope with taxes imposed by the Finance Act, 2023.

The planned demonstration is expected to affect daily revenue collection of Nairobi County Government since many businesses are expected to close in fear of destructions.

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