The escalating war between Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto has reached a boiling point with the second in command dismissing
his boss as totally confused and inconsequential in his 2022 presidential ambitions. Ruto has been telling his associates, that Uhuru is a slave of members of the Kenyatta family and Baringo senator Gideon Moi to an extent he does not know how to handle his succession arithmetic and that is why he is sending mixed signals on who is his preferred successor. If it is not confusion that Uhuru has forgotten during campaigns that he said in public many times that he would rule for 10 years and Ruto for 10 years, Ruto says, then he does not know what confusion is. Ruto is also reading mischief in the plot to package Raila Odinga as the preferred successor. To Ruto camp, the powerful Interior CS Fred Matiang’i factor will emerge at the right time as a compromise candidate. A number of cabinet secretaries have openly been fronting Matiang’i presidency. Weekly Citizen has information that using his links in the country’s intelligence circles, Ruto is privy to the fact Uhuru has been disregarding briefs on his succession. It is on these grounds that he was at one time favouring One Kenya Alliance and even had agreed to finance its operations only to backtrack when Raila became suspicious. The alliance has Musalia Mudavadi, Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Gideon Moi. Ruto, sources revealed, has now launched a massive propaganda campaign to expose the president
as a weakling who is only hanging onto power, thanks to the support of a compromised Raila and the fanatical Luo nation.
Fred Matiangi
To Ruto, Uhuru is too confused that he has lost support in his own Kikuyu nation and that is why even in Juja by-election, which was at one time represented in parliament by the president’s late brother Peter Mungai Kenyatta, Jubilee lost to Moses Kuria’s party. To Ruto, the current confusion in Jubilee is due to poor leadership. According to the DP, Uhuru is a coward who were it not for him, he had even in 2013 during Kibaki succession race agreed to step down for Mudavadi. Weekly Citizen has been briefed Ruto and his allies were to engage Uhuru to rescind his move and that is why he decided to be in the race that he eventually won. But after being sidelined in Uhuru’s second term, Ruto has declared total war on the president and is employing social media to cast aspersions on his character. Ruto regrets why he folded his United Republican Party to join Jubilee that is now dying due to Uhuru confusion. The war reached a peak last week after Uhuru, while addressing a delegation from Ukambani led by Wiper leader Kalonzo, hinted at backing one of the principals in the National Super Alliance for presidency in 2022 polls. Ruto decided to take the president headon by portraying him as a confused man who had deliberately set his house on fire and is now sleeping at his neighbour’s. The deputy president who has taken the battle to the president’s doorstep by fielding a candidate in Kiambu county through United Democratic Alliance for the Kiambaa parliamentary by-election, has also been confiding to his inner core that the president has been boxed to a tight corner by the hugely popular hustler movement, which has left the head of state unsure of his fate after the 2022 polls.
Musalia Mudavadi
For the first time since falling out with his boss, Ruto last week openly accused the president of killing the Jubilee party so that he could give Ruto’s competitors in 2022 presidential race a headstart. A furious Ruto tweeted: “So, was the destruction/dismembering of Jubilee, a national party, meant to pave way for support of tribal or regional parties in Nasa? Now, with the collapse of Jubilee, isn’t it fair for those who can’t fit in ethnic parties to build UDA as an alternative national party? Ama? EUCHO!!NGAI FAFA MWATHANI!! Ruto also sent tongues wagging when he tore into the president for declaring his intention to back a Nasa principal. He tweeted: “So, what happens to the Thurakus, the kumera kumwara contingent, the 8 million of us?? None, no youth, no woman, no man of the 8M who woke up early and voted 3 times for UK/WsR ticket merit support? Sawa tu! Tutajipanga na support ya MUNGU. Insiders added that Ruto, who has not been seeing eye-to-eye with Uhuru, has now decided to expose the president’s weaknesses as he schemes total control of Mount Kenya region body politics, which is the president’s hometurf and countrywide. To Ruto, Uhuru presidency has only benefited the Kenyatta family members and friends. In this strategy, insiders revealed, the deputy president’s team sees the president as a weakling since he was heading a divided cabinet with almost half of the cabinet secretaries reporting their secret deliberations with him to Ruto.
Kalonzo Musyoka
The wars in cabinet portray a president who is worried and confused and does not know who to trust since majority of his cabinet members owe allegiance to the deputy president. There are reports Uhuru has now commissioned an investigation into his cabinet after he was surprised by the action of his deputy, who has on several occasions mentioned government projects by name, tender, contractor, and by time frames in a series of his public meetings with his supporters though the head of state has been keeping him in the dark on such matters. Matters were made worse when Ruto publicly confirmed that some of the cabinet secretaries were at his beck and call, adding he had been holding secret meetings with a majority of CSs, whom have detected that chances of him succeeding Uhuru in 2022 are high, thus are planning for the next government. Ruto, the sources added, is also using Uhuru’s utterances when he met Ukambani delegates to show how confused the head of state is. Uhuru, while urging Ukambani leaders to work together, told them to copy Mount Kenya region which he stated was united. Everyone agreed it is united yes but behind Ruto
The deputy president, in his tweets, aims at portraying Uhuru as a leader out of touch with reality, including in his own backyard. This is because Uhuru conveniently forgot to tell the Ukambani delegation that his Mount Kenya backyard is pulling
in different directions, with the biggest grouping backing his presidential bid while two other camps are equally confused.
Moses Wetang’ula
Sources revealed that the deputy president is also exposing the president as confused following his declaration that he has achieved much in his second term after sidelining his deputy in running the government. The president is on record saying that in his first term, thieves led by Ruto made governance difficult and are to blame for poor service delivery. But in the coming days, the deputy president through Twitter, schemes to portray Uhuru as clueless since he does not know or is unaware many Kenyans are suffering due to the economic mess the country is in, thanks to overborrowing and the Covid-19 outbreak. The tweets will reveal how many Kenyans can hardly afford a square meal, with thousands having lost their jobs due to the outbreak of the virus coupled with state sanctioned corruption. Another strategy Ruto is employing to portray Uhuru as confused is tearing apart the president’s tribal leaders he is enthroning across the country to whittle his influence. The deputy president is also portraying Uhuru as confused over his move to challenge the High Court ruling declaring the Building Bridges Initiative unconstitutional, null and void. The BBI that was birthed by the March 9 2018 handshake between Uhuru and Raila suffered a major blow after a High Court’s five-member bench unanimously declared it unconstitutional.
Gideon Moi
Ruto aims at portraying Uhuru as a confused leader who is simply flogging a dead horse by appealing at the Court of Appeal for BBI to be legitimised. Insiders revealed that the deputy president has also decided to directly take on the president over his remarks that that he will not hand over power to a thief, which referred to him as the thief. The deputy president also sees a confused president in the head of state’s drive to launch many development projects across the country at the twilight of his administration. The president has been ordering speedy completion of the multi-billion shillings new projects some of which have not been budgeted for, which again portrays him as confused. Ruto allies openly state, Uhuru will go to history as Kenya’s worst president. To them, the country is in the mess due to the confusion created by the handshake that instead of uniting Kenyans, is dividing them with Uhuru unable to allow independence of the judiciary, legislature and other independent institution creating more confusion. The confusion has seen the foreign debt hit roof tops, economy struggling to survive and power struggle among Uhuru handlers see key parastatals go without proper management as it is happening at Kenya Ports Authority. To Ruto, Uhuru has lost the initial Jubilee focus and is out to please dynasties at the expense of common Kenyan. Uhuru decision to sideline him , Ruto feels, is a blessing in disguise as it will have come with a lot of baggage.
