Speaker Moses Wetangula rullinggs on Wednesday afternoon brought to an end the confusion that has been in the minority party over her leadership.This is after five months of back and forth, court ruling and threats from all different quarters
Speaker of the National Assembly Moses Wetangula has approved the removal of nominated Member of Parliament (MP) Sabina Chege as the Deputy Minority whip.
Sabina Chege will be replaced by Embakasi West MP Mark Mwenje as the Deputy Minority whip Leader to his Suna East counterpart Junet Mohammed. Moses Wetangula said,”In this regard, Mark Mwenje replaces nominated MP Sabina Chege as the Deputy Minority whip.” Chege will henceforth become the whip of jubilee party after the speaker recognized Jubilee as an independent party in the parliament .
The issue has rumbled on since April 6,2023 when the minority coalition party made a communication to the speaker with an intention to replace Sabina Chege with Mark Mwenje. This was after she indicated that she would henceforth be working with the government.
“That there currently exist no bar against the decision made by Minority party to replace it’s whip Standing order 20a(5) require the speaker to communicate the decision to replace the whip to the housein his regards.
This was after the Kiambu High Court threw out a case by Sabina challenging her removal from office and directed her to exhaust the party resolution mechanism.
The Speaker however lamented the disarray in the Jubilee Party having received several conflicting correspondences over the status of the party in the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition party.
The nominated Sabina Chege faction fell out with Azimio after he decided to work wi Kenya Kwanza accusing them of disloyalty.He also did not spare Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi and his deputy Robert Mbili for holding a press conference to smea him and his legal team over the matter even though he had earlier hired them separately and was waiting for the court papers to be given out.But Mr. Wandayi , while commenting speaker Wetangula for his decision, said Sabina had illegally held the position for the five months and therefore Mr Mwenje should be adequately Commedated for that position without any problem.
” Our position as a party is that Sabina has been holding this position illegally while Mwenje has been working since may 30 2023,” Mr Wandayi said. Kimani Ichung’wah the majority leader disagreed that the decision should take place as from Thursday.
Kioni’s group has called a NEC meeting on Thursday 26, which is the day that Former President Uhuru Mwigai Kenyatta will be celebrating his birthday and also he will be chairing the meeting.
Kioni told the nation media that “The people we have invited are the genuine NEC members based on the resolution of the previous meeting that expelled the Chege_led team. We will also be using the meeting to celebrate the party leader’s archievement and birthday.”
Ms. Chege group have dismissed the NEC and urged the members to ignore it .The statement signed by party chairman Nelson Dzuya Said that,” We are extensively on the notice and have resolved that the memyof the NEC should not attend any meetings called by Kioni.”