Politicians opposing handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga reached out to individual members of Building Bridges Initiative, it has emerged.
The politician, Sunday Nation reports, wanted the members to strike a working relationship with the team with an aim of influencing the final outcome.
Members of the team are said to have rejected the offers, forcing them to device a way of keeping politicians away from infiltrating the exercise.
The team is set to handover the final report soon, with President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga expected to unveil it for scrutiny among Kenyans.
It was discussed and a common position was taken not to entertain such.
“Lucrative offers were made but we were guided by our conscience. We did this in the interest of the country,” one of them said.
According to one of the joint Secretariat member Paul Mwangi, the team held sessions and agreed to drop their prejudices for delivery of balanced report.
To keep politicians at bay further, the team agreed to attend sessions without phones so that to minimize chances of leaking deliberations to the public.
“Before getting down to work, we had to first surrender our personal political opinions and biases. We had to also erase from our minds whoever we thought had proposed our names to the task force to focus on the mission ahead,” Mr Paul Mwangi, the BBI secretary, said.
Chairman Haji said the team has proved that the solution to all the problems the country face today can be tackled through dialogue.
“We may not have been a homogenous team given our differing political backgrounds before the President and the former Prime Minister appointed the team, but the swiftness with which we gelled and got down to work and the commitment displayed is quite humbling. Kenyans should learn from this,” said Garissa Senator.