NASA’s mission impossible

A week after NASA leader Raila Odinga was ‘sworn-in’ as the ‘People’s President’ at Uhuru Park Nairiobi, his ‘office’ is working behind the scenes in an attempt to trigger a presidential poll in August 2018 and with under six months to conduct a  Constitutional Referendum and hold a presidential election , the opposition is racing against time.

In an interview with BBC on Wednesday February 7, Odinga maintained that President Uhuru Kenyatta and DP William Ruto were not validly elected terming the Jubilee administration as ‘illegitimate’.

” We will not go to physically remove Uhuru from State House, we know how to remove him. We dont recognize his presidency so he can sit pretty. We want another election and according to our timetable, by August this year,” said Odinga

NASA’s technical committee has since announced that they will be having the people’s convention at the end of the month to kick start the referendum drive that will culminate into a presidential vote to be overseen by a new electoral body, but with only six months to go, Odinga’s team could be working behind schedule.

” We are invoking Article one of our Constitution by setting up peoples convention. It is going to deliberate on resolutions coming from regional assemblies,”  said Odinga

Odinga cited electoral reforms, judicial independence, police reforms and devolution as the critical issues that require attention through a referendum.

To have a referendum through a popular initiative however, NASA must collect at least one million signatures and present them for verification.

NASA intends to kick start the signature collection drive in March. This will be followed by verification, and a proved, the setting of referendum question and presentation the bill to all the 47 county assemblies for approval by at least 24 counties..

County assemblies will then have three months to deliberate the issues in the bill, a timeline that makes NASA’s august plan virtually impossible.

During the 2015, Cord championed Okopa Kenya Referendum drive where Odinga presented 1.4 million signatures to the IEBC who released the verification results in March, four months later, announcing that the signatures did not meet the one million constitutional requirement.