Kenyan prosecutors will charge the sister of opposition leader Raila Odinga and opposition senator Fred Outa with incitement to violence and other crimes after attacks on staff of the election board last week, the chief prosecutor’s office said on Monday.
Odinga has been due to compete against incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta in a repeat presidential election on Oct. 26, but pulled out earlier this month, saying the polls would not be free and fair and calling for a boycott of the vote.
Ruth Odinga is a former deputy governor of Kisumu State.
The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Keriakor Tobiko, ordered her immediate arrest.
Meanwhile, President Uhuru Kenyatta urged Kenyans to remain peaceful ahead of Thursday’s fresh presidential election, while a witness said police shot and wounded at least one person amid a rise in ethnic tensions in the capital, Nairobi.
A resident of the low-income Lucky Summer neighborhood said tensions grew after members of Kenyatta’s ethnic Kikuyu community performed a ceremony involving the slaughter of sheep. Some residents interpreted it as a war ceremony. Others said it was a ceremony to recruit members of the Mungiki, a proscribed quasi-religious gang known for beheadings that has been used in past elections to attack supporters of the opposition, Sheila Kariuki said.
Supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga went to the site of the ceremony and police shot at them when an argument started, Kariuki said. Running battles between stone-throwing residents ensued until local legislator Tom Kajwang arrived and calmed the Odinga supporters, Kariuki said.
BBC
