Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, on Tuesday, November 10, responded to media reports that he had yielded to Deputy President William Ruto’s demands for amendments to be done on the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) document.
The assertion was made when Raila met leaders from the pastoralist communities in Nairobi on Monday, November 9, where he promised to consider their concerns about being left out of the process.
In a statement, Raila explained that the changes the team made were largely editorial and not new additions to the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).
He also ruled out any chance that significant ideas would be introduced to the document noting that the changes were to capture different communities’ ideas in a way that serves their needs.
“There is little chance of significant new ideas being brought into the BBI document ahead of the referendum, except for editorial work to make it explicit on demands by various groups where it sounds vague or general, as is the case with the issues of pastoralists.
“It is basically done and there is little likelihood that new ideas will be pushed into it. However, there are groups that feel their views were not captured in the manner they were presented during the collection of views and those are the corrections we are promising to make,” explained the former PM.
Various news outlets across the country carried the reports on their front page suggesting that Raila had agreed to the changes after relentless demands by Ruto and his allies to be more accommodating in the supposedly unifying document.
The pastoralist leaders had elected three representatives who would meet the BBI technical team to iron out their concerns. Among those present in the meeting included Treasury CS Ukur Yattani, Mining and Petroleum CS John Munyes and Senate Majority Leader Samuel Poghiso.
Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen, who is a supporter of the DP, had warmed up to the development suggesting that Raila had rescinded his earlier hardline position on the matter.
“Well done. Glad you’ve rescinded your earlier hardline position that BBI won’t be amended.
“Now let’s amend the document to capture concerns of pastoralists, evolutionists, Judiciary etc then pass BBI by consensus. We don’t want us vs them attitude. Let’s reason together as Kenyans,” stated Murkomen.
Some of the BBI proposals had raised eyebrows among different sects of the political arena.
