Uhuru pledges to oversee smooth power transition

President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday pledged to oversee a smooth transition to the next administration.

In a recorded message last evening, President Kenyatta committed to handing over power to Ruto, but appeared to question the consistency of the decision reached by the Supreme Court in dismissing a petition filed by Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga.

Uhuru said it was his intention to oversee a smooth transition to the next administration and that he had issued all the necessary orders to facilitate the transition process.

"The process of handing over is in progress through the Assumption of Office Committee, which actually began its work as of August 10. It is my intention to oversee a smooth transition to the next administration and all the necessary orders to facilitate this process have already been issued," he said.

In his message in which he neither mentioned nor congratulated President-elect William Ruto, Uhuru encouraged citizens to scrutinise public institutions and the decisions they make -- in what appeared to be veiled criticism of both the Judiciary and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

He suggested that the decision taken by the court "was not in tandem with what the public knew about the election or its results."

"For this is the civic duty of every single Kenyan. In particular, this civic duty requires every citizen to constantly put the truth presented by constitutional institutions to test and they must test them for coherence, but also for correspondence," said Uhuru.

He continued, "Has there been a consistent pattern that is acceptable to our democratic ethos? We must ask ourselves, is it about numbers or is it about the process? which of these two is it? And can our institutions rule one way in one election and another way in another election without scrutiny?"

He suggested that the decision made in the Ruto petition was inconsistent with the decision the court had reached earlier when the result was nullification. This was in reference to the nullification of their election in 2017 after a successful challenge by Raila and the resulting repeat election. "I do invite you Kenyans to keep vigil and indeed, to hold all institutions to account," the President repeated. "The second thing we must place under scrutiny is whether the truth given by institutions has correspondence."