It will die like BBI! Moses Kuria pours cold water on NADCO process

Former Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria has criticised the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) process, warning that it risks collapsing just like the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).

In a statement on Tuesday, Kuria said he had initially hoped the process would pave the way for a national referendum, possibly as a seventh ballot during the 2027 General Elections.

“I was clinging to the hope that the NADCO process will culminate in a referendum, most likely as the 7th ballot during the 2027 General Elections,” Kuria said.

His remarks come a day after President Ruto and ODM leader Raila Odinga jointly addressed a Parliamentary Group meeting in Nairobi, where they rallied lawmakers behind the NADCO framework.

The former CS also accused President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) and Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) of turning what could have been a historic reform process into a partisan arrangement.

“Sadly what I saw yesterday was an otherwise promising national moment being reduced to a dowry paid by UDA to ODM. Not even other constituent parties in both Azimio and Kenya Kwanza were consulted,”

Kuria likened the current developments to previous failed political settlements, particularly the BBI, cautioning that NADCO risks a similar fate.

“We are treading on a trodden path littered with corpses like BBI. The last chapter of NADCO will be a replica of BBI,” he stated.

The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) was a political process in Kenya that began after the March 2018 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga.

The handshake came after months of political tension and protests following the disputed 2017 presidential election.

The two leaders said they wanted to “heal” the country and unite Kenyans by addressing long-standing problems such as election violence, corruption, tribalism, and exclusion from power.

To do this, they formed the BBI Taskforce, later turned into a Steering Committee, which gathered views from citizens and came up with a report.

The BBI report recommended wide-ranging reforms, including changes to the Constitution.

The process washowever declared unconstitutional by the courts he added.