Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, in a late-night message to his supporters, alleged a sinister move by the government over his planned Monday, March 27, demonstrations was in the works.
In the letter dated Sunday, March 26, the Azimio leader reiterated an earlier assertion that Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua had plans to infiltrate his protests.
To achieve that, Raila claimed that rowdy youth had been recruited to mix seamlessly with Azimio supporters and cause chaos.
“It has come to our attention that Gachagua is currently coordinating a major operation against planned Azimio la Umoja protest rallies scheduled to take place in Nairobi tomorrow,” the statement from Raila read in part.
Apart from Nairobi, Raila alleged that some youth had also been recruited in Western and Nyanza regions to cause chaos under the guise that they were Azimio supporters.
“A number of rebel Azimio Members of Parliament (MPs) from these regions have been deployed in support of this mission, especially in western Kenya and Nyanza,” he further stated.
A wary Raila,as a result, advised top Azimio politicians to be careful during the protests arguing that they may be targeted by rowdy youth.
"In Nairobi, public service vehicles have been deployed to ferry youth to places like Jogo Road, Kibra, Pandora, Hyrum, Muthurwa, Kayole, Kariobangi, Korogocho, Mlango Kubwa, Githurai 44 and Githuri 45.
"Their mission is to target Azimio leaders in Nairobi including Babu Owino (Embakasi East MP), Opiyo Wandayi (National Assembly Minority Leader), Edwin Sifuna (Nairobi Senator), and Jeremiah Kioni (Jubilee Leader), among others," Raila alleged.
Raila also warned that any chaos that would be witnessed during the demonstrations would solely lie on Gachagua's shoulders.
The heavily-worded statement (whose content involved hard-hitting accusations that could not be published) came at a time when Azimio had announced that it had created a secure web platform to capture live proceedings from the demos.
“The material uploaded on the secure portal will be available for the world to see. This will enable us to keep the public and all stakeholders informed of progress and real-time occurrences across the country,” Azimio stated on Sunday, March 27.
The coalition further revealed that it had set up IP-enabled spy cameras across the country.
The planned demonstrations were declared illegal on two separate occasions by Police Inspector General (IG) Japhet Koome and Interior Security Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki.
"People are allowed to come to the city. However, if you have plans to bring violence and if you are armed with offensive weapons, you will face the music,” the IG warned while declaring the protests illegal.
"It is not feasible for security organs to allow masses of people to roam streets and neighbourhoods of their choice carrying stones and other offensive weapons while chanting political slogans and disrupting the daily activities of others," the CS on his part warned demonstrators.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and his team were yet to respond to the claims by the time of publishing.
