ODM leader Raila Odinga has said the collection of Kenyans signatures for the BBI referendum will start next week, and after the 1 million signatures are collected, they’ll be presented to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) together with a BBI draft bill, with plans to have the BBI discourse and a possible referendum concluded by latest April next year. “We’ll be talking to the representatives of Governors between now and next Tuesday, and on Tuesday we’ll meet women representatives and leaders of the County assemblies and after that we’ll be launching the signatures collection some time next week.”
He said the collection of signatures is expected to sail through quickly so that a referendum can take place without delay. Raila, who was speaking on Friday at his offices in Nairobi, responded to calls by church leaders who had reservations about sections of the report, including an expanded executive. He said everyone had the opportunity to talk about the issues they had with the report proposals, adding that the door had been opened for two years now. “This is a democratic society, they are entitled to their views but we go by the views of the majority of our people,” he stated.
The ODM leader said most of the issues have bene capture din the report, and there won’t be substantive content added but just a bit of editing, “Certain issues which had probably been mentioned and were not captured and they are being added. They are not really new issues,” he affirmed. He said factors like livestock and blue economy weren’t mentioned extensively, and those are among issues that may be highlighted further.