NANCY AGUTU

Wajir deputy governor Ahmed Muktar is set to be sworn in today as the new governor of the county.

“The ceremony shall take place on Tuesday at 10 am at Wajir county headquarters,” a gazette notice read on Tuesday.

Mohammed Abdi who was the governor was impeached on Monday. 

A total of 25 senators voted in favour of the ouster motion on Monday night.

Two senators voted against the motion while four abstained.

The impeachment takes effect immediately, though Abdi can appeal the decision in court.

Prior to the impeachment, Abdi made a passionate plea to senators to be sympathetic and humane and spare his job.

The governor urged the house to carefully study the charge sustained by the committee and give him another chance.

“I wish to plead with the senators to be sympathetic, not impeach me just because of one issue. It can be a violation of the Constitution but it is not a gross violation,” he told the plenary.

“Impeachment is in our laws. However, in my opinion, the impeachment before the house does not meet the threshold. What the committee has sad is that health was an issue that was impeachable but it cannot amount to gross violation of the Constitution.”

This came after a committee recommended that the Senate uphold his impeachment for running down the healthcare system, thus compromising the lives of residents.

The 11-member impeachment committee found that despite the county assembly appropriating Sh2.4 billion to the sector, health facilities are in a sorry state.

This, according to the panel chaired by Nyamira Senator Okong’o Omogeni, amounted to gross violation of Article 43(1) of the Constitution on the right to best attainable health standards.

“The committee found that allegation 15 on the violation of the right to health of the people of Wajir has been substantiated and further, that the violation meets the threshold for the impeachment of a governor under Article 181 of the Constitution,” the committee said in its report.

Source: The Star