By Correspondent
The head of Stewards Revival Ministry Bishop Samuel Ngacha Njiriri has asked President William Ruto to hand over the evidence and information in his possession implicating Members of Parliament in corruption to investigating agencies.
Bishop Njiriri says that President Ruto should ensure that all MPs implicated in corruption and extortion from civil servants are prosecuted as a deterrence measure to others.
Bishop Njiriri who is also the chairman of the Federation of Evangelical and Indigenous Christian Churches of Kenya (FEICCK) says President Ruto’s claims over corruption in Parliament cannot be taken lightly or ignored as he receives a lot of information from the National Intelligence Service(NIS).
“Officers from NIS are spread all over the country and are privy to almost everything going on in the country. It therefore goes without doubt that whatever they tell the president is credible enough,” Bishop Njiriri said.
In his sermon at the Stewards Revival Ministry headquarters in Kariobangi South during a baptismal ceremony on Sunday, Bishop Njiriri asked the head of state to hand over the information in his possession to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Authority (EACC) for action.
Two weeks ago, President Ruto accused MPs of perpetuating corruption by demanding bribes from Cabinet Secretaries and governors, claims that have seemingly created a clash between the Executive and the Legislature.
While addressing the Devolution Conference in Homa Bay County, the President called out MPs who, he said, had turned house committees into money-minting rings instead of exercising oversight responsibilities, labelling the House a den of graft.
“There is something happening in parliament that must be called out. There is money being demanded from executives, from governors, from people in executive especially those who are for accountability.” President Ruto, who veered off from his speech, pointed directly to unnamed committees of parliament that he says have turned to extortion rings, claiming that members of a certain committee had demanded as much as Sh 150 million to clear a certain governor implicated in some corrupt malpractices.
“It cannot continue to be business as usual. It cannot be that committees of parliament demand to be paid for them to write reports or look the other way,” said Ruto.
Now Bishop Njiriri wants President Ruto to publicly expose names of all MPs involved in the extortion ring to enable voters to have clear information about their representatives.
“It is also imperative that their names are publicly exposed so that voters do not re-elect them in 2027. Those involved in the scheme should be treated as both criminals and social misfits,” Bishop Njiriri says.
At the same time, Bishop Njiriri has taken issue with assertions by Nyandarua Senator John Methu President Ruto is concentrating much of development in counties such as Homa Bay at the expense of regions such as Mt Kenya that voted for him in 2022.
Homa Bay is among the bastions religiously loyal to ODM leader Raila Odinga, who was Ruto’s chief opponent in the last vote.
According to Methu, the president should only prioritise areas that voted for him in the last General Election.
“I want to ask you, you all saw last week, President William Ruto was in Homa Bay launching many development projects. Did those people in Homa Bay vote for him? So those people saying that we should remain in government, are they stupid or not? And if we were to remain in government, will we stay in a government that is killing people?” he had posed.
But Bishop Njirri now says that all regions across the country are entitled to equal development opportunities as all Kenyans above 18years pay taxes.
“The Senator’s outbursts are completely misplaced. No region should be marginalized on the basis of having not voted for President Ruto in the last election. All Kenyans are entitled to equal development opportunities,” Bishop Njiriri said.
The cleric said Nyanza and North Eastern regions have been marginalized by successive previous governments and it is just logical for the current government to prioritize them in a bid to bring them to the same level as other regions.
