Showdown Looms as Nairobi Business Community Beats NASA to Raila's Swearing-in Venue
A fresh showdown looms between National Super Alliance (Nasa) and the controversial Nairobi Business Community over Uhuru Park grounds, which both groups plan to use on January 30th.
While Nasa has announced it will hold the swearing-in of its leader Raila Odinga as the people's president at the venue on the aforementioned date, the Nairobi Business Community said it has already booked the park for its free medical camp on the same day.
Further, a church group is also said to have have applied for permit to use the venue on the same date.
An official at City Hall said the business community and the church will pay a requisite fee for the park on Monday. “We have received requests from the Nairobi Business Community and a church and we expect the payment to be done on Monday,” the official told the Nation.
Confirming they had booked the venue, Nairobi Business Community chairperson Wiflred Kamau said they will hold a free medical camp at Uhuru Park, where street boys who wish to get circumcised will be given the service.
“We have written to the county government and we are actually supposed to pay Sh250,000 for the venue tomorrow, January 22,” said Kamau. “NASA will have to get another ground if they have an event the same day. We are using Uhuru Park that day,” he said as quoted by Nairobi News.
This could re-ignite the bad blood between the two groups as witnessed during last year's election, where their members clashed over political differences.
Speaking in Mombasa on Sunday during a people's assembly forum, opposition leader Raila maintained he will take oath despite warnings by the state.
“Attorney General Githu Muigai said that the swearing-in is treason, others said I will be killed, hanged for life or get life imprisonment. But I want to let them know our people have been killed by the government and another life lost is nothing. I am ready to be sworn in whether they like it or not... There will be no election in 2022 if 2017 issue will not have been resolved,” maintained the NASA leader.