Aston Lukoye
Azimio la Umoja party leader Raila Odinga has called off the planned protests that were to take place on Monday, April 3.
Speaking during a press conference at his Capitol Hill office, Raila announced the cancellation of the protests which he termed the ‘mother of all demonstrations’, would not take place.
“In view of the foregoing, we stand down from our demonstrations for Monday, April 3, 2023,” he announced.
The former Prime Minister also called for the halting of all detentions and legal actions related to the demonstrations.
“William Ruto has issued what I regard as an important statement, we have met and listened to a lot of people, including religious leaders, and they have implored us to give dialogue a chance.
“We acknowledge the olive branch on dialogue, this is a positive development. We agree to a balanced parliamentary proceed co-chaired by both sides, this committee must be done immediately, including all arrests and prosecution related to demos,” he said.
“We agree that a balance parliamentary process co-chaired by both sides and backed by experts from outside should proceed. This community should be composed with immediate effect with strict deadlines for resolving the crises facing the country,” he declared.
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Raila continued by saying that the coalition brought up important national concerns during the protests, such as electoral inequity, the cost of living, the IEBC’s legitimacy, the openness of the server for a forensic audit, and the brutal police attacks on the media and unarmed bystanders.
He gave President Ruto a counterproposal in which he stated that his party, Azimio, does not accept the results of the presidential election that was held in August 2022 more than six months later and that he thought the nation was currently going through its worst crisis.
“We emphasize that rights to assemble are anchored in our constitution, we reserve our rights to call for demos if there is no meaningful outcome.
“Should there be no meaningful engagement or response from Ruto to our counteroffer, we are set to resume our demonstrations after one week. We are ready to embrace dialogue,” he stated.
“There has also been excessive use of force by the police. Police officers are meant to keep law and order but if you find a situation where they are using live bullets against unarmed civilians, it is a reckless police force,” he added.
His declaration came moments after President William Ruto urged the him to call off the demonstrations.
