Ruto : They want to push me out of government

Deputy President William Ruto addresses Iten residents in Elgeyo Marakwet County yesterday. [Peter Ochieng, Standard]

Deputy President William Ruto now claims there is a wider scheme to push him out of Jubilee government.

Speaking in Kabarnet, Baringo County yesterday, Ruto said that the scheme was being hatched by some people in Jubilee to force him out.

In what appears to be a response to recent remarks by President Uhuru Kenyatta that those in government but were dissatisfied should leave, Ruto said security and other state agencies were players in the scheme.

“If you are praising it (government) stay in, if you are dissatisfied, get out,” Uhuru had said.

But yesterday, his deputy spoke of people trying to drive him and his supporters into a corner yet he was involved in forming the Jubilee government.

“For those who want to drive the rest of us into a corner in a government that we created together...we want to tell them we are gentlemen so we are not going to respond to them,” he said.

Ruto’s sentiments yesterday seemed to echo his remarks on Thursday while in Kajiado County where he said he expected President Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga to support him in the 2022 General Election just as he previously supported them.

The DP said he played a major role for the president to be where he is as well as Raila, who was prime minister during retired President Mwai Kibaki’s regime.

Jubilee party vice chair David Murathe and the party’s secretary-general Raphael  Tuju dismissed Ruto’s claims, saying they were not aware of such plans.

Jubilee Vice-Chairperson David Murathe [File, Standard]

“I have not heard such plans. The DP should tell us more,” said Murathe when reached for comment yesterday.

Tuju said that he was not privy to such plans: “I am not aware.... Those claiming so should be the ones to shed more light.”

Earlier before addressing residents at Kabarnet town yesterday, Ruto was at St Joseph the Worker Catholic Kituro parish for the opening of the church.

He took issue with the removal of some of his allies from parliamentary committees, adding that police, Ethics and Antic-Corruption Commission and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations were being used to intimidate leaders allied to him.

He referred to a case where Kisii Deputy Governor Joash Maangi and South Mugirango MP Sylvanus Osoro were arrested “because they were his allies”.

“When did it become a crime to become a friend of the Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya who was elected alongside the President of the Republic of Kenya?” he asked.

He publicly endorsed the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party, saying its symbol, a wheelbarrow, was “a sign of work”.

He said he was the only one fit to succeed President Kenyatta and “push the wheelbarrow” as opposed to ANC Party Leader Musalia Mudavadi, Wiper’s Kalonzo Musyoka, and ODM’s Raila Odinga.

His allies led by Elgeyo Marakwet Senate Kipchumba Murkomen and Nakuru Senator Susan Kihika said Ruto had been declared persona non grata (unwelcome) by the party over his campaign for the presidency in 2022.