A section of UDA politicians want the government not to interfere with Raila Odinga’s planned public engagements with his supporters across the country, starting with Nairobi this Wednesday, December 7th, saying such a move will lead to a massive confrontation between Kenyans and the police, not only in the city but also other parts the republic considered the Azimio leader’s bases.
Already, there is tension between the President and Mr. Odinga if their back and forth on Twitter is anything to go by.
On Saturday night, Mr. Ruto took to his Twitter account, accusing the Azimio leader of planning a coup to overturn the will of the people.
“Even with the system/deep state you lost the election. stop deluding yourself and lying. The coup to overturn the people’s will using rogue commissioners, you are now threatening us with [maandamano] demonstrations about, failed [sic],” Ruto tweeted at 10:49 pm.
At 11:34 pm, Raila responded to the president’s tweet by sharing a video of him from 2007.
President Ruto was a member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party in the run-up to the 2007 elections that saw former President Mwai Kibaki face a stiff competition from one of his ministers, Raila Odinga.
”In Juja, the total number of votes is 85, 000 the president has 100, 000. This means 15, 000 people voted for the president only and walked away, as ODM what we are saying is that we want the commission to announce results that are authentic with supporting documents. Already the commission says they’ve sent a plane to get those results. We are told it will be ready by 3 o’clock,” Ruto says in the video.
Kenya Kwanza leaders opposed to clashing with Odinga in the streets say ODM has suicidal supporters who have nothing to lose and that the government should ensure the demonstrations happen peacefully without any provocations from the country’s security agencies, failure of which the confrontations may get out of hand.
Speaking at a Sunday service in Embu this afternoon, President William Ruto disclosed he had directed Interior CS Kithure Kindiki to deploy enough security officers in the city so as to protect Odinga and his supporters, as well as businesses owned by Kenyans.
