MP threatens to pursue travel ban for Linturi

Bumula MP Wamboka Wanami yesterday disclosed that he will write to donor partners to request them to declare embattled Agriculture and Livestock Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi as a persona non grata following legislators’ decision to impeach him.

Addressing a news conference yesterday, Wamboka said it is sad Linturi is yet to resign despite 149 MPs supporting motion to impeach him.

Accompanied by his lawyer John Khaminiwa, Wamboka said it is high time the United States of America (USA) and the European countries disassociated themselves from Linturi as MPs have already made a decision that they do not have confidence in him.

In his statement, Wamboka clarified that his push to have Linturi out is not personal and is being made in good faith.

He said: “we will be appealing to the donor partners such as the US and the EU to disassociate themselves with Linturi and henceforth cease dealing with him. Mithika Linturi should become persona non grata on grounds of having been impeached by 149 members.”

No confidence

He added: “If Mithika was a gentleman he should have by now resigned because almost 80 percent of the MPs declared they have no confidence with him.”

And speaking before the 11 member team investigating Linturi, Wamboka said that since he took over the matter, he has had to enhance his security as on several occasions he has been followed adding that his wife has also been trolled on social media by unknown people.

He said:” This matter has not been easy, I have been followed forcing me to enhance my security and my wife has also been attacked online but I know that this is something I signed for and I am not relenting.”

And at the press conference, Wamboka said that they have enough evidence to nail Linturi and prove to the world that he violated the constitution.

While expressing his confidence with the 11-member committee investigating Linturi, Wamboka challenged the team’s members to give justice to Kenyans owing to the fact that most members are from the agricultural zones.

He said: “49 MPs voted to support a motion of no confidence against Mithika Linturi. This speaks a lot to his morality on this matter. We are ready to do anything and ensure that sanity is brought to the people of Kenya.”

He added: “we have filed our submissions on this and we are ready to deal with this matter. I can confirm to you that we are ready with facts and details to link Linturi to the scandal.”

Khaminwa said that as a team they would have hoped that Linturi would resign to avoid being subjected to a painful trial.

He said that the trial is a replica of the Goldenberg scandal that saw Kenyans lose billions of shillings.

Important matter

In his statement, Khaminwa said the investigation in to the matter was important as this would deter other individuals from engaging in such acts in future.

He said: “While we thought that the Cs would accept culpability and resign without being taken through a lot of pain and without subjecting farmers to such trial, it’s unfortunate that we are here.”

He added: “Coming from a constituency that relies heavily on agriculture we hope that parliament will uphold the rule of law , human rights and the constitution. There is need for this matter to for done so that we cannot have a repetition of this.” 

The 11-member committee investigations come after 149 MPs voted in support of the motion against 36 who opposed it while only three abstained from the vote, thereby meeting the threshold of 117 required to have the committee formed.

 The vote by the legislators was conducted in a session that was characterized by boos, heckling, song and dance with a section member chanting “Linturi must go.”

 The MPs from the opposition side mobilized those in support of the government to allow the motion to be passed on grounds that the Linturi had violated various provisions of the constitution.