Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen says he left the Saturday BBI rally at Kinoru Stadium in Meru before it ended because he “had parental duties to attend to later Saturday”.

Taking to his official Facebook page on Saturday evening, the Elgeyo-Marakwet Senator said besides the parental responsibility, MP Moses Kuria -- who, he claims, had given him a lift to the venue -- stood and left before the event ended, and, therefore, there was no way he was going to remain behind.

“It is not true that I stormed out of the Kinoru BBI meeting. Moses Kuria who gave me lift was leaving for another engagement. I had no choice but to follow. I also had parental duties in my children’s school. I apologise that wananchi followed us out of the stadium,” said Murkomen in a 5:30pm Facebook post.

Disapproval

Murkomen earlier Saturday left the BBI rally at Kinoru Stadium “prematurely”, attracting disapproval from some of the attendees of the event.

Murkomen, who was just from making his address, did not even take five minutes on his seat before he stood and drove out of the venue in the company of Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria. The incident happened a few minutes to 2pm.

East African Legislative Assembly MP, Mburi Apuri, while addressing the crowd, termed Murkomen and Kuria’s walk-out as “a sign of disrespect to President Uhuru Kenyatta”.

“It is extremely wrong of the two leaders to come here, whip up the crowd and prematurely leave an event rooted for by the president. They are showing President Kenyatta that they do not respect him at all,” said Apuri.

It took close to ten minutes for normalcy to resume as Murkomen and Kuria drove out of the venue.

'Political conmanship'

In his speech earlier, Murkomen accused ODM leader Raila Odinga of political conmanship, saying that Odinga — shortly post-2017 polls — declared that he won’t recognise a Uhuru presidency, yet he is now working with the same Uhuru, “though Odinga’s motives in the arrangement are ulterior”.

“We should accept that Mt. Kenya people joined other Kenyans to elect President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is not a computer-generated president. Some people here said President Kenyatta ran in the presidential race against himself. We should stop political conmanship if we want to unite Kenyans,” said Murkomen in a jibe directed at Odinga, who was seated while watching keenly.

“All the leaders present here today, were elected in 2017 to ensure that we address Kenyans’ challenges in regard to the prices of tea, coffee, milk, miraa among other commercial crops. We should stop lying to Kenyans that we will use the BBI to address those challenges,” added Murkomen.

'DP has not been insulted'

Murkomen said he had noticed that “the regular verbal abuses that are often being hurled at the deputy president at previous BBI meetings were conspicuously missing in the speakers’ addresses at Kinoru”.

Murkomen and Kuria are staunch supporters of Deputy President William Ruto, and it is widely speculated that they are against the BBI agenda, which — according to political pundits — would jeopardise the DP’s chances of ascending to presidency in 2022 should its recommendations be adopted.