A near-fistfight between Jubilee Party Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni and EALA MP Omar Hassan nearly derailed a National Dialogue Committee meeting at the Bomas of Kenya. Kioni’s recent remarks that the talks are dead in the water and that if he were in the position of coalition leader Raila Odinga, he would have long withdrawn from the talks seemed to irritate Omar.
During the two-hour meeting, Jubilee Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni and EALA MP Hassan Omar engaged in a verbal brawl that nearly turned ugly. Kioni’s earlier comments that the talks were a waste of time irritated the EALA legislator. Kioni, on the other hand, stated that Hassan Omar was disrespectful to the Jubilee Party. The meeting was considering recommendations from their technical team on whether they could agree on proposed interim measures to be implemented while the talks were ongoing. The proposals contained in a document titled “Harmonised unbundling of issues” sought, among other things, to suspend the Finance Act 2023 as an interim measure while leaders sought a solution to the skyrocketing cost of living.
However, it appears that the team did not agree on most of the interim demands, sending their technical teams back to the drawing board. The key thing agreed on as an interim measure in Azimio’s list of 16 issues presented as interim measures appears to be that the security of leaders across the country must be reinstated.
The committee’s meetings continue today as it begins to hear presentations from interest groups.
