Anxiety as NASA increases number of companies to boycott

juma chrispinus

November 22, 2017 9:47 AM

The new revelation comes few days to Uhuru Kenyatta's swearing-in event.

Raila Odinga led National Resistance Movement is this week expected to release a new list of companies in addition to the already existing three in a bid to sabotage their revenue in its wide economic boycott plan.

The list of companies, in addition to Safaricom Limited, Bidco and Brookside Dairies, National Super Alliance CEO Mr Norman Magaya quipped on Tuesday, will form part of the ongoing intensive campaign to paralyse their operations as Mr Odinga’s team blamed them for siding with “Uhuru Kenyatta, Jubilee Party and IEBC to rip Kenyans of their democratic right in August 8 polls.”

“It’s about companies that played a major role in subverting the will of the people and democracy. There is a National Resistance Movement committee. If they recommend others, we’ll include them,” ODM National Chairman Mr John Mbadi disclosed earlier, adding that the decision on which company to include is arrived at after a meeting at the NRM’s apex body.

Shortly after the detailed ruling of the Supreme Court which annulled the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta on September 1, Raila Odinga targeted Safaricom Limited, accusing it of conspiring with the Wafula Chebukati led Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to bungle the polls.

NASA accused Safaricom of transmitting results from the polling stations directly to a cloud server registered in Spain — not to the IEBC server in France, as per their contract. Safaricom has denied these claims.

In a resolve to have electoral justice, the National Super Alliance – which morphed to the National Resistance Movement – through a series of press conferences, opted to instruct its millions of supporters to boycott products from companies which were deemed to have contributed to the bungling of elections.

Several Nasa lawmakers have affirmed that the strategy has been effective.

“The boycott is extremely effective. It has even surpassed our expectations,” Mr Magaya said.

Mr Mbadi added: “Just ask the distributors of those products or the firms — you’ll get the response,” amid rising tension that the former Premier could be sworn-in on October 28 in a parallel event to Uhuru Kenyatta’s.

juma chrispinus