KISUMU, Kenya, Aug 18 – Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party leader Raila Odinga says he will accept any ruling of the Appeals Court on the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) that is due out Friday.
Odinga said he is now focussed on the 2022 General Election which is one year away.”If we lose out on BBI, we can move to Supreme Court, but because there is no time left, we won’t pursue that line,” he said in an interview on Nam Lolwe radio Wednesday.
Odinga says any government coming in after the 2022 elections may choose to revive the BBI constitutional amendments he has been pushing with President Uhuru Kenyatta before the process was declared null and void by the High Court.
Odinga, Kenyatta, BBI Secretariat and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) filed a challenge at the Appeals court to contest the constitutional court decision.
“We want to concentrate on the coming elections, once we make the government, we bring BBI back,” he said, insisting that BBI is beneficial to Kenyans, “It’s a people driven process, we can’t sneak it in Parliament. If the Court of Appeal knocks it down, then we will place the document in an envelope as we wait for the new government to bring it back.”
Odinga said he will announce which coalition he will be in next month as he prepares for the 2022 General Election.
On Tuesday, the ODM leader had said the party was ready for any ruling from the court, but warned that “nobody can stop reggae.”
The Appeals Court is set to rule on their appeal on Friday in an open court restricted to 16 lawyers due to the COVID-19 protocols.
“We will wait for the ruling of the court. If they rule favourably well and good and it they rule otherwise it will still be okay but nobody can stop reggae,” Odinga said during a tour of Nakuru Tuesday.
He was accompanied by Governors Lee Kinyanjui (Nakuru), Wycliffe Oparanya (Kakamega) and MPs Junet Mohammed (Suna East), Maoka Maore (Igembe North), Maina Kamanda (Nominated) as well as former MPs Njenga Mungai (Molo) and Peter Kenneth (Gatanga).
Also present were ODM Party Secretary General Edwin Sifuna, Youth and Gender Affairs Chief Administrative Secretary Rachel Shebesh among others.
The BBI appeal was filed by Odinga, the BBI Secretariat, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The appeal followed a ruling of the High Court that declared the constitutional amendment bid a nullity, citing numerous illegalities in the process.
