Speaking during the Embu county economic forum, Ruto said Raila chose Karua to deputize him because he was in a state of confusion.
“Wakati walisikia tunapanga mipango ya mama mboga, na wale wote kuanzia chini tukienda juu, yule mtu wa kitandawili akakimbia kumchukua mama mmoja na kumfanya running mate wake, kwa sababu ya kuchanganyikiwa,” Ruto said.
Loosely translated to: “When they (Azimio) heard we were planning to lift mama mbogas and all those struggling to eke a living, Raila went ahead and chose a woman running mate out of confusion”.
Raila unveiled Karua as his running mate on Monday, a day after Ruto chose Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua to deputize him.
For Ruto, women are only good for the job of being mama mbogas and nothing else. Mama mbogas do a great job of feeding Kenyans and we all applaud them for that and they are our mothers and sisters but that is not the only job women can do.
We have Kenyan women who are doctors, pilots, teachers, they are engineers, and they pretty much do all the frontline work in our hospitals and healthcare facilities.
We have Kenyan women doing all sorts of business and work in the country and now Kenya could very well have a woman Deputy President and possibly future president, a job for which she is fully qualified. Maybe that thought doesn’t exist in William Ruto’s world but in the real Kenya we all live in that is what Kenyans see.
Read: Martha Karua taking Azimio to a whole new level
Empowering women cannot be limited to mama mbogas otherwise Ruto’s daughter would be doing the same work but she is a dignitary appointed by the Kenya government to work in that department and she and other Kenyan women deserve to do what they are qualified for.
Of course, the choice of Martha Karua as the number two in an Azimio government come August 9, 2022 has rattled Ruto very badly.
Right now William Ruto has reduced his entire campaign plan to chasing Martha Karua everywhere she goes. When Karua was in Embu the next day, Ruto and his squad were in Embu to try to cool down things after the warm and energetic reception Karua and her team received there.
Next Ruto had to rush to Nyeri and go to towns like Karatina where the Azimio DP was to try to counter her emerging prominence as a full force in the next elections. On Saturday Karua and his team were in Kiambu and everybody knows Ruto will be there first thing the next day in the morning.
Raila and Martha Karua presidential team is turning Mt. Kenya into a battleground for 2022 and Ruto cannot believe what he is seeing. Too bad but he will learn to cope with that reality. At this rate, he will need to have a list of Martha Karua’s campaign plan a week in advance so as to prepare to follow her wherever she goes.
This is Martha’s team in Githurai Saturday May 22, 2022. Ruto has to go there on Sunday (today).
Things are falling apart for William Ruto and it is happening just too fast. Nobody expected this at all and the timing is marvelous for Azimio with two months to the election. These are rallies to the ballot box not just for show like Ruto has been doing since 2018.
The big difference is that Karua is very respectful in her messages to the voters. She is asking them to vote for her team but they are free to vote for any person of their choice.
Martha prefers to present her credentials as a person who will commit herself and the Azimio government to fight and kill corruption and theft of public money and resources because unless that is done effectively there will be no money to provide the much-needed services and support that ordinary Kenyans need every day.
William Ruto on the other hand is busy with his usual attacks on his rivals and now he thinks that Karua as a woman was only chosen because his team has been talking about mama mbogas. The last time I checked I didn’t see Ruto nominate any of those mama mbogas to be his running mate.
In fact, I doubt even one single mama mboga has been nominated to run for any office in the Ruto Kenya Kwanza group. They just want women to stay in their lane and provide the country with food as traders in the market and let the big men like Ruto do the important things. That is medieval politics.
For Ruto and Gachagua, women during the campaign just need yellow uniforms and become dancers for them and their lives would be wonderful. That is the bottoms-up economy for women in Kenya at its best. Oh for the love of God.
Now Gachagua will have to ferry these women all across the country from Nyeri to do dance for his boss at rallies chasing Martha Karua all over the place. It is quite insulting but we know who we are dealing with.
It is also difficult to see how mama mbogas in Kenya will get any help from Ruto when their proposed plan already in place is to allocate Kenyan resources by the tribe with Mudavadi being promised 30 percent of those resources.
Gachagua wants 50 percent allocated to him to give his voters. Alfred Mutua was promised 20 percent. That makes a complete 100 percent of our resources. So what happens to mama mbogas in other communities that do not give Ruto 80% of the vote? Do they just have to eat the mbogas and wait for the next government?
Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada
