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{
    "id": 488277,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/488277/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 351,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to lend my voice to this Motion of Adjournment. As I support it, I think on Tuesday a very important event happened in our country. It was that the President and our leader of CORD met at the burial of the former Minister, Dr. Njoroge Mungai, in Kikuyu. That the President extended an olive branch to our leader is, I think, something that we need to embrace. We on both sides of the House are obligated to do the same. It is a fact that Kenya moves forward every time all of us feel accommodated. I think we should take over from where the President left, start measures that will encourage societal conviviality among the desperate groups in Kenya. Hon. Speaker, I think our push to amend the Constitution has been misunderstood. Everybody agrees that our Constitution, as we have it, today needs auditing and I think everyone of us agrees that we need to look at this document. Maybe what differs is our methodology, but in the end we all want to look at it. Hon. Speaker, there are obvious conflicts in the Constitution. If you look at Article 94, for example, legislative authority is vested in this House; similarly Article 25 says that the general rules of international law shall become laws of Kenya. My understanding of that provision of Article 25 is that it is actually possible for a Cabinet Secretary (CS) signing on behalf of Kenya somewhere in New York to make laws that will bind this country. These are things that we need look at. Hon. Speaker, I have also looked at some of the things that this Constitution has done. For instance, why do we seem to be criminalising aspirations for high office to the extent that if somebody aspires to be president then he cannot even sit in this House? I am of the view that if, for instance Raila Odinga, Martha Karua or Peter Kenneth, were sitting in this House today, the young Members of this Assembly would benefit greatly from their experience. These are areas that we need to look at."
}