Kenya’s Deputy President calls for national intelligence chief’s resignation over protests

Kenya's Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has laid blame on the spiral of the anti-finance Bill protests on the National Intelligence Service (NIS) on its boss, Director-General Noordin Haji.

Mr Gachagua said had the NIS boss effectively briefed President William Ruto on the magnitude of the protests, lives would not have been lost during the demonstrations that turned violent.

"This information was not available to President Ruto. Had he known that the people did not want Finance Bill, 2024 he would not have asked his people to push it through. Yet we have an organisation (NIS) paid to give such information to the President. It is clear there is a failure in intelligence," he said. 

He also lamented that as a result of a dysfunctional NIS, lives were lost and property worth millions of shillings destroyed.

"Senior officers have told me in private that they did not have an intelligence brief of the protests," he said.

At the same time, Mr Gachagua called for dialogue to avoid recurrence of the anti-Finance Bill protests that rocked the country on Tuesday.

"We were elected the other day as a popular government. How did we get here? When did the rain start beating us? When did we stop listening to the people? President Ruto and I were the darling of the Kenyan people," he added.

He also lauded President Ruto's decision not to sign the contentious bill.