Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has intimated that the next phase towards a Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) referendum will begin next week.
In a presser from his Capitol Hill offices on Friday, the handshake partner revealed that collection of one million signatures will start in the coming week.
“We will be doing the launch of the signature collection sometimes next week. We want that exercise to be done as soon as possible so that the matter can be handed over to the electoral commission, and then we can move towards the next phase of a referendum.
“This matter, as already mentioned before, should be concluded by latest April next year. That is where we are as far as BBI is concerned,” the ODM party leader outlined.
The former PM was accompanied by politicians from the Coast region who also submitted their proposed edits to the BBI report.
His remarks come as more pressure from several groups continue to pile up calling for review of the report before being subjected to referendum.
The Council of Governors had recommended for some changes to the report, including the establishment of the Deputy Ministers posts.
Members of County Assemblies have also proposed a raft of changes to the report, but the chances of being heard are slim.
MCAs through county assemblies’ forum CAF had requested to hold their meeting at the Bomas of Kenya, but it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 protocols.
Evangelical church leaders led by Bishop Mark Kariuki had also claimed that the BBI taskforce ignored their proposals.
The leaders drawn from the evangelical ministries on Wednesday said it was unfortunate that despite having presented their memorandum to the taskforce, none of their concerns had been captured in the final draft.
Earlier in the week, he Raila in a series of tweets clarified that the BBI document will no longer take any amendments.
He explained that the document is only open to edits.“It is basically done and there is little likelihood that new ideas will be pushed into it. However, there are groups that feel their views were not captured in the manner they were presented during the collection of views and those are the corrections we are promising to make,” he stated.
Parties have been pushing for a non-contested referendum however the pro BBI team led by handshake partners Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta are adamant even as Deputy president and other leaders pile pressure.
