”We’ll Free The DCI, KRA From State Capture.’’.That was DP William Ruto’s promise and number one agenda which he will carry in his first 100 days if he gets elected the president of Kenya.
What Ruto did not publicly announce is that he will also free his political friends in government with him if they get elected to steal public money as much as they want because the DCI and KRA will not be allowed to touch them.
Freeing the investigative organs of the state from doing their work in specific corridors of corruption means Ruto if he becomes our president, will call on the DCI and KRA (which will all be under him) and tell them to not ever go after any politician for corruption because that is political persecution and it must end.
How Ruto believes this is the number one problem Kenyans face is something he will have to explain.
The Azimio leadership in their convention told Kenyans that fighting corruption is their number one agenda and they came up with their plan for that. Now Ruto is telling Kenyans the exact opposite.
Read: Raila Odinga marches through the country to Azimio’s big event
For Ruto, fighting the DCI and KRA and stopping them from persecuting politicians on charges of corruption is his priority.
Kenyans should thank both Raila Odinga of the Azimio Coalition and William Ruto with his UDA team for telling us off the bat what they think about the war to end corruption and free public money to be used to develop public projects that Kenyans need.
Raila wants to free the money for development and Ruto wants to free the DCI and KRA from investigating corrupt politicians.
Kenyans will decide which of those two divergent positions meet their expectations of who their next president should be. One is ready to fight corruption and the other one has promised to protect corrupt leaders from being investigated.
Ruto was very concerned about what his boss Uhuru did to him.
“Those who remained loyal to our founding vision within Jubilee were shunned, hounded, threatened, and then persecuted. This is how we lost four years that would have gifted the brilliant blossoming of a beautiful dream which inspired millions of Kenyans in 2013,” he said.
“This is the party for every Kenyan, from every walk of life. Here, you won’t be asked about the name of your father. I am very proud to be given this responsibility to be the party leader. I will do his best to deliver on the party’s ideals,” he said.
In Ruto’s world, Raila Odinga is running for the presidency and has been involved in politics all this time because his father was Kenya’s first Vice President. Maybe it was the same Raila’s father who sent him to detention for a total of nine years between 1982 and 1991. What a terrible father he must have been.
Your father cannot ask you to go to jail and detention where you are tortured almost to death. Your father cannot ask you to put your life at risk fighting for your country. That is a choice and a commitment you must make as an individual.
Read: It is Official: Raila Odinga is now in the race to be Kenya’s 5th President
Nobody can inherit the will to risk their lives fighting for the freedom of their country from their parents. Those human feelings and commitments are not hereditary. It is just nonsense to be hooked in that line of thinking.
Ruto also promised to move Kenya to the next level.
“President Kenyatta told me he needed space to work on his personal legacy. I obliged and this led to me being placed at the periphery. But during this 4 years , I was way, I was able to talk to people in the villages and listen to them so that I can do what they want.
“We also constructed over 150 technical teaching institutions. We rolled out a comprehensive UHC to complete a task of transforming Kenya that we were assigned in 2013,” he continued.
Ruto accused the Uhuru government of not following the ‘original covenant’, opting to oppress Kenyans through punitive economic policies.
“From 2017 the party backpedaled on its foundational commitment including its foundational covenant. The party rejected national inclusiveness and the based transformative leadership. It instead embraced parochial, ethnic divisive and retrogressive politics,” he said.
Ruto added that “It defaulted to tribe as the organizing variable of our politics and governance. It privatized governance and weaponized obligations policy and institutions. It pursued personal politics of congregating an entitled few to express their individual wishes as community interests and translate their private consensus as national policy.”
In a nutshell, unless you are living in fear and shivering expecting the DCI to knock on your doors or the KRA to call on you because you are an M.P facing corruption charges, William Ruto has nothing for you.
To say that is a sad thing is an understatement, but that is what the elections are for and Kenyans will be grateful they know what to expect from both presidential candidates plus their parties, and they will vote accordingly.
Ruto and his UDA Convention to nominate their presidential candidate was primarily a Uhuru bashing festival.
Everything was about how evil Uhuru Kenyatta is and the UDA crowd graced the gathering with songs of “Yote yawezekana bila Uhuru”. It seems everybody forgot that it is Raila who is in the presidential race.
Ruto got a little nervous with the crowd bellowing the “YOTE YAWEZEKANA BILA UHURU” song and had this to say to Jimi Wanjigi about the song.
“Uhuru Kenyatta is Kenya’s President, and he is still my boss. So, even when we’re singing, let us not say ‘yote yawezekana bila Uhuru’, please. I’m urging you with due respect. Thanks,” Wanjigi said.
What does Ruto expect his supporters to do when he has been attacking Uhuru viciously for days and lying all the time about him? Ruto took that nasty war on Uhuru to the convention and his supporters told him they can hear what is bothering him.
A convention to nominate a presidential candidate should be a moment of joy with people coming together and having a great time talking to Kenyans. Who would have thought that such a convention would be one of grief and anger at so-called enemies?
At some point, Ruto and UDA may have to get out of their super angry mode which is becoming too explosive as Ruto started it in Thika two days ago. That stuff can exhaust people.
We all have our problems and things that annoy us but we don’t allow them to define our lives. Ruto may need that form of therapy right about now. It is free.
Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada
