Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot has castigated the apprehension of Rose Njeri, a web developer placed in custody last Friday for creating a website that would facilitate public participation on the Finance Bill 2025/2026.
Speaking during an interview with NTV on Monday, June 2, the Kericho lawmaker claimed that the platform she had engineered for public feedback on the finance bill was 'brilliant', and her apprehension was uncalled for.
The senator leader has further slammed the Pangani Police Station, stressing that "it was not a good thing" that the police station denied Njeri's family and advocates access to her.
"I saw the story that an activist had been apprehended and had been taken somewhere, and I did not follow up until this morning. Today saw that her family and advocates were denied access to her, which is not a good thing. I believe this is not what we envisioned as a country," Cheruiyot said.
"What troubled me more, though, is the reason that she is being apprehended, or rather, what is being reported as the reason for her apprehension. I thought what she had done was brilliant, unless there is something else that we have not been told," the senator said.
Cheruiyot further stressed the need for the parliament to adopt more convenient ways to get public feedback on the upcoming finance bill 2025/2026.
According to the lawmaker, introducing a new and modern public feedback system will be fundamental in ensuring that young people, who have shifted to more advanced digital ecosystems, feel more included in public participation.
"I reflected on the motion that we moved in the senate immediately after the Gen-Z protests, and part of the recommendations that we made is that parliament has to come up with new ways of receiving public feedback beyond traditional means. So there has to be a proper way of a feedback system," he said.
Cheruiyot's statement comes hours after activists, led by notable figures such as Boniface Mwangi, Hussein Khalid, and Hanifa Adan, among others, stormed the police station on Sunday, May 1, demanding the release of Njeri.
The activists were heard singing in unison songs outside the police station's gate to condemn the apprehension of Njeri.
The police, however, closed the gate to the public, denying the activists entry into the police station.
On the other hand, the Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah, who visited Njeri in the police station on Sunday, said that the apprehension of Njeri was not only unlawful but also violated her constitutional rights.
"I went to Pangani Police Station to visit and stand with Rose Njeri, who is being unlawfully detained for the noncrime of creating a website to promote the constitutional imperative of public participation by allowing citizens to comment on the Finance Bill 2025," Omtatah said.
