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{
"id": 114723,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/114723/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Muthama",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 96,
"legal_name": "Johnson Nduya Muthama",
"slug": "johnson-muthama"
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"content": "Thank you Mr. Speaker. I also rise to contribute and support this important Presidential Address that was delivered on the 23rd February, 2010. A lot has been said and the Head of State touched on many important issues. But I want to zero in on three important issues which I picked and I thought they were very important for our nation. One point the President raised was to say that Kenya belongs to all of us irrespective of who is poor, who is rich, who is tall, who is big and who is small. He did not discriminate or say that Kenya belongs to a certain group or class of people. If truly we have to live with that statement, what I stand here to say is that after the general election of 2007, we all know that we had problems in this country, we had violence and a certain class of people was very much affected. That class of people is that of people who are known as people who belong to that very low class of citizens of this country. It is the same group of people which is today known as the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Mr. Speaker, Sir, I watched the television and listened to radios on Sunday in this country; the most devastating thing was what was brought on television screens to show the problems and the pain that Kenyans are going through. The pictures we saw were those of old women, old men, young people and little children. Those poor Kenyans were being shown after we had the prayers to mark exactly two years after the signing of the National Accord. I attended the prayers at the Holy Family Basilica here in Nairobi; the President was there, the Vice President was there and the Prime Minister was there. A lot of things were brought to the fore on how we have achieved development, how we have managed to bring peace to this country. But then in the evening, we were shown women and children crying when in dire straits. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if this country belongs to Kenyans and if it belongs to all of us, we know that the President himself, the Vice President, the Prime Minister, the Ministers and the MPs, including myself, our right of ownership of land is protected. When you have a title deed to the land you own in Nairobi, you are assured it is secure and it is protected by the Government. These poor Kenyans who are still on the streets to date, their hope is pegged on the Government that they elected in 2007. If we are saying that Kenya belongs to all of us, as the president said, why should we have Kenyans still suffering out there? If truly the Government cannot solve the problem of those poor Kenyans, where are they supposed to go? Where truly are they supposed to put their case? I want to say that some people were evicted from Naro moru in 1960; they were chased away; this game did not start yesterday. Those poor Kenyans came all the way from Naro Moru to State House and that was in 1960 when the late President Kenyatta was alive. The Minister of state, the late Mbiyu Koinange, went to tell Mzee Kenyatta that outside the State House were poor Kenyans, little children and men, who were seeking to see him because they had been evicted from their land in Naro Moru. Mr. Koinange said that he thought that people were giving Mzee problems and he preferred to send them back to the PC, or the Provincial Administration, so that they could be resettled. Mr. Speaker, Sir, President Kenyatta being a true nationalist asked his Minister: âBwana waziri, these people travelled all the way from where they came from to see Kenyatta because he is the Head of State of this Republic of Kenya and they are outside"
}