Suba South Member of Parliament Caroli Omondi found himself on the wrong side of the Speaker’s gavel on Thursday after his conduct during a House session crossed the line of acceptable parliamentary behaviour. The legislator was handed a suspension of a minimum of five parliamentary sitting days after Temporary Speaker Peter Kaluma found him guilty of gross disorderly conduct — a ruling that brought proceedings to a sharp halt and drew wide attention across the chamber.
The trouble began during debate on the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill, a weighty piece of legislation that had already attracted vigorous discussion from lawmakers. Omondi raised a procedural concern over the lack of quorum in the House, but the session took a sharp turn when he allegedly directed a cutting remark at Temporary Speaker Kaluma — reportedly telling him to “stop being stupid.” The comment landed with immediate force, effectively derailing the debate in its tracks.
When directed to withdraw the remark, Omondi was having none of it. Rather than comply, he insisted he had been misrepresented, arguing that what he actually said was “We’re not stupid” — a phrase he claimed was aimed at the House in general rather than at the Speaker personally. To settle the matter, he called for the official Hansard record to be checked. It was a bold move that would ultimately turn against him.
The verification was conducted and the Hansard transcript confirmed that Omondi had indeed used the phrase attributed to him. With that finding on the table, Kaluma delivered his ruling without hesitation. “This being the first time I’m meting out this punishment, I will suspend you from the House for a period of a minimum five days,” the Temporary Speaker declared. He further noted that any member who refuses to retract unparliamentary language commits an act deserving of punishment under the National Assembly’s Standing Orders.
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah weighed in before the final ruling was issued, firmly backing the Speaker’s position and urging that the Hansard record be verified before any decision was made. His intervention signalled that there was no appetite among the majority ranks to shield a colleague from the consequences of his own words, reinforcing a broad consensus that parliamentary decorum belongs to the whole House.
Thursday’s episode sends an unambiguous message to all members of Kenya’s National Assembly: the dignity of the House is not negotiable, and the Speaker’s authority to enforce it is fully intact. As lawmakers continue debating consequential legislation such as the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill, Omondi’s suspension stands as a stark illustration that the rules of parliamentary conduct apply equally to everyone who walks through those doors.
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