President Uhuru Kenyatta snubbed highly the publicized Kisii Entrepreneurial Summit because the county had invited opposition leader Raila Odinga to give a keynote speech during Thursday’s opening session, a top Jubilee point man from the region has claimed.
Kenyatta was expected to give the closing remarks on Saturday but opted to delegate to Industrialization CS Aden Mohammed.
However, the point’s man who spoke on condition of anonymity on Sunday said the president had to call off his maiden visit to the county after learning that Mr Odinga had grazed the occasion to attack his regime on corruption.
“The Kisii function was in the president’s itinerary till late Friday evening. He had to delegate to Adan (Mohammed) when he learnt that Mr Odinga had been invited to give a keynote speech and more so attacked his government. He couldn’t graze an occasion that had already taken a political dimension,” claimed the point man.
He said the president was unhappy with the change of events orchestrated by the organizers of the summit who allegedly introduced Mr Odinga when he had excused himself of participating in the opening session and promised to attend the closing session by directed that CS Aden represent him.
“Before the president left for Israel, Mr Odinga wasn’t among the speakers to attend the summit but his name was introduced later by event organizers. Aden was to represent the president in the opening session and later on the President was to attend the closing session. But the coming of Raila and the attack he launched on the government killed it all because the president never wanted to attend a politicized function,” the points man added.
The occasion was also snubbed by all nine MPs from Kisii County with only Senator Chris Obure and Women Rep Mary Otara attending alongside county government officials.
Governor Ongwae had announced publicly the anticipated attendance of the president in the closing session of the summit.