There was drama on Thursday when Members of Mandera County Assembly engaged in a physical fight while conducting House business.
Reports indicate that the MCAs were set to discuss a report on the vetting of county cabinet nominees when the chaos erupted.
Jubilee-allied members opposed the tabling of the document by the Committee on Appointments, seeking to reject all the 10 nominees forwarded to the assembly by Governor Ali Roba for vetting and approval.
The session was marred by controversy even before Speaker Hon. Mohamed Adan Khalif walked into the House.
The Jubilee MCAs started whistling to delay his entry and after about an hour of the commotion, Mr Khalif entered the hall with his sergeant-at-arms.
[caption caption="Mandera MCAs during a fracas in the county assembly chamber on November 9, 2017"]
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Any attempts by the Speaker to commence the afternoon session were blocked as the MCAs blew their whistles louder.
At this point, Mr Khalifa was forced to adjourn the sitting to 8 pm as the members engaged in a fist fight.
The Jubilee members accused the Economic Freedom Party (EFP) of sabotaging the government by rejecting the nominees.
“We are aware of the plan to adopt the report rejecting the CEC nominees by the EFP members using the tyranny of numbers and we shall not accept that,” lamented Mr Jimale Hassan who is the leader of the minority.
Governor Roba, who won his seat on a Jubilee ticket, dropped half of the members who served in his first term and sought to the replace them.
On his part, Majority Leader Abdi Hassan defended the committee’s recommendation adding that the nominees were dropped since they were not fit to hold office.
“All these nominees have integrity issues and those retained by the Governor have pending bills which cannot be explained how they came up and how they will be settled,” he explained.
[caption caption="File image of Mandera County Assembly"]
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