Budalang’i Constituency Member of Parliament Ababu Namwamba says he has been looking after his wife, Priscilla Namwamba, who gave birth to their baby number three in April, 2016.
Ababu Namwamba says the commitment that comes with being a new father has made him miss in action during Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) anti-IEBC protests that took place in the capital and other regions in the country for the past five out of six Mondays.
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, June 7, Ababu Namwamba said he “has been on paternity leave”, hence his absence from the political arena.
“I have been out and about. We got a baby a month ago. So I have been busy on paternity leave,” Ababu told fellow legislators.
“It is purely coincidental that some things happened while I was away,” he added.
Ababu Namwamba and his wife Priscilla Namwmba welcomed their third baby on April 1.
He however, maintains he shouldn’t be coerced to do things in a certain way simply because the party he is affiliated to does.
“No one can force me to do things that I don’t want or believe in. I only engage in activities that I have faith in,” he said.
Jubilee mole? Not me
While some CORD supporters may argue that the legislator was conspicuously missing from the anti-IEBC demos due to his “fence sitting tendencies”, Ababu refutes the claims.
In late June, 2015, Ababu Namwamba visited President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House. Later on, he welcomed Uhuru during the president’s Western Province trip to bail out Mumias Sugar Company.
And finger-pointing began, with sections of CORD MPs accusing the Budalang’i lawmaker of being a Jubilee mole.
The ODM secretary around the same time vehemently denied the allegations disclosing that the interaction with Jubilee leaders was for development and not politics.
“The meeting was not about CORD or Jubilee but about the economic well-being of the people. When people from different parties meet, it does not mean that one of them has abandoned his party, but that leaders have matured enough to close ranks when the lives of Kenyans are at stake,” Ababu Namwamba told the Standard.
Ababu challenged ODM members to initiate development agenda rather than engaging in politics all the time.
“My party leader Raila Odinga was in Kisumu welcoming the president, will you also start saying that even he has become a mole? If other parties meet with the Jubilee Government it is for the sake of development.”
Comments