Saturday, September 16, 2023 –Opposition leader Raila Odinga has reignited debate on demonstrations and signature collection.
In their press briefing held at SKM Command Center in Nairobi today Saturday September 16 over President Ruto’s one-year scorecard, which he claimed is disastrous, Odinga reminded the William Ruto-led administration that the opposition will not be resting easy as the country is run down by poor leadership that has seemingly plunged everyone into economic suffering.
“It’s been a grand disaster, and as Azimio, we’ve rated the current regime at 30%, equivalent to a D-, for their initial year in office.
“We have been saying that the donkey is tired but now things have turned out that the same donkey is now fallen down,” Odinga started.
He, therefore, promised that time is coming when the opposition will come back to the people and tell them what to do with the 15 million plus signatures already collected.
15 Million Signatures Collected
The opposition leader added that the time to discuss signature collection and what this will do is nearing fast and it will be made public for everyone.
“We have collected over ten million signatures which we will use accordingly.
“I am not telling you about what we are going to do with the signatures which we collected. This is not time to pre-empt our plans,” he assured.
Raila was speaking this after he also said yesterday that, whatever measures the government was taking to save the falling shilling and the general economy will yield absolutely nothing unless taxes on fuel are reduced back to 8 percent in VAT rates.
He warned the William Ruto’s government that consequences may follow soon should they not heed to this advice and reverse some of the clauses signed in the Finance Act to save the economy.
Mr. Odinga, who also shed some light on the plans ahead, said there will be no street protests as it had been done before but said the strategy had since changed and he will make it public soon.
“This time round, I will not call on anyone to go back to the streets. But be rest assured that we will use these signatures since this regime has failed,” Raila stated.
Deliverables after one year
He further shook Ruto’s administration with claims that it had failed to deliver on any of their promises including improving the economy, security, and wiping out runaway corruption.
His statement coming at the time both Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir and his Trade and Industrialization counterpart Moses Kuria projected a further painful future for the country.
Appearing before the Parliament yesterday Friday September 15, CS Chirchir opened up that, as a government, it had hit a brick wall on fuel prices.
On his part, CS Kuria told the public that fuel prices will still go up until next year and that no one can stop the increase.