President Uhuru Kenyatta is said to have ordered the Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji to prosecute Deputy CJ Philomena Mwilu after she made disparaging remarks against the head of state in one of her private gatherings. According to sources close to the powers that be, the President was angered by a recording which was shared with him, in which the Deputy Chief Justice was caught saying that “huyu mlevi hafai kurudi kama rais” just before the 2017 elections.
The Deputy CJ might not have understood how state systems works and assumed that there were no state officials who would share such a statement with the President. The remarks are said to have angered the President that he ordered for the immediate removal of the Deputy CJ after his assumption of office for the second term. The Deputy CJ was targeted right before the determination of the second petition by Raila after defeat in the runoff during the 2017 election.
But problems of the Deputy CJ seems to be ebbing as former Prime Minister Raila Odinga recently intervened when he met the Deputy CJ and put the President on speakerphone begging him to forgive her. The intervention has seen the office of the DPP relax the push to have the Deputy CJ pushed out even as her prosecution continues.
The Deputy CJ challenged her prosecution for alleged corruption claiming that the President was just out to revenge after a ruling which saw the Supreme Court quash the 2017 re-election of President Uhuru.
The Deputy CJ was charged with abuse of office, failure to pay stamp tax, improperly obtaining Sh12 million from the troubled Imperial Bank and obtaining security by false pretence, among other counts. An individual, Mogire Mogaka, also filed a petition in court wanting the CJ out over her involvement with Imperial Bank before its collapse.