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{
    "id": 492607,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/492607/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 269,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. ole Ntutu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2535,
        "legal_name": "Patrick Keturet Ole Ntutu",
        "slug": "patrick-keturet-ole-ntutu"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker for giving me the opportunity. I also rise to comment on the President’s Speech, which I thought was very good. I support the President for the decision he made to go to The Hague. Before I comment on a few things, I would like to correct an impression that was created by one of my colleagues a few minutes ago. He said the reason why the President handed over the presidency for 48 hours was to appease the URP side. That is far from the truth. That is a constitutional requirement that any time the President leaves the country, he must give powers to the second-in-command. I am one of the Members of URP and not a single day, since we got together with the TNA side, have we felt that we are not part of this Government. I want to assure my colleagues, particularly Members of the Opposition who are wishing that, that will not happen to wait until after 2022 and then see what will happen. I want to say two things. I am one of those people who travelled to The Hague to accompany the President of Kenya and I saw three things. Number one, the President showed leadership. He honoured the summons. He is a law-abiding citizen. My seven year old son told me that what the President did was very good because we will all have to abide by the law. It does not matter whether you are the President or the king. When I was at The Hague, I watched the Status Conference going on and one thing that surprised me is that there is no evidence against the Fourth President of the Republic of Kenya. In fact, if I remember very well, the Prosecutor said: “I have no hooks to hang on”. He was asked by the Judge if he could succeed if he was given six months to again go and look for evidence and he said no. It is very important for Kenyans to understand that, that case is not going anywhere. It is as good as finished. When we saw the prosecutor saying that he has nothing against the accused, the next thing that we waited for - and we were all crossing our fingers – was whether the presiding judges would dismiss the case there and then! That did not happen because it was not possible at that particular time. But I can assure you that most of us who went there came home happy knowing that our President had nothing to do with the post election violence. This is the right time to look into the issue of IDPs. I am about to ask the Speaker of this House whether we can call or summon the one judge, Justice Philip Waki, to bring the envelope which had the 20 or 12 persons to this House, so that we can start those cases again. At The Hague, those cases are ending and we have an obligation, as Kenyans, to bring those cases back. We can do that for our IDPs. Without that, we are not going to do much."
}