Uhuru’s biggest bombshell to Ruto and UDA yet

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A lot of William Ruto’s insiders and Twitter operatives have held to one wishful thinking, after another, regarding President Uhuru decamping from Ruto’s presidential campaign train and supporting Raila Odinga. To some of those Ruto hopefuls that would be blasphemy

At some point, those supporters kept telling themselves that President Uhuru was playing Raila and will throw him under the bus when the time for the campaigns start.

Others wished rather gravely that Uhuru will not participate in any way in the next General Election and will watch from the fence – sitting comfortably and not caring who between Raila and Ruto wins the presidency.

Uhuru blew all those hopes up on Wednesday, January 12, when speaking in Naivasha, the Head of State said in Gikuyu language, the country does not need a leader who makes citizens fight, and that it was only Raila who can guarantee every countryman and woman peace after the elections.

Read: President Uhuru drums up support for Raila in Naivasha [+video]

President Kenyatta, who spoke to the residents of Mbita in Homa Bay County later on the same day said he will soon take Baba with him, in what was understood to mean he will campaign for him.

“I will soon come back here with Baba and even as we go ahead with those other issues we need Kenya to move together as one because that was the spirit of the handshake,” he said.

“I want us to move ahead united and in peace particularly during this election year,” he told the jubilant crowd by the roadside in Mbita town.

By the way that Mbita Causeway Bridge is something else. I was there in 2017 when I went home for the 2017 General Elections. It is a huge magnificent bridge over Lake Victoria.

The best way to get there from our side of Lake Victoria is to start from Luanda Kotieno beachfront in Uyoma, Rarieda constituency.

From Luanda Kotieno you get a ferry ride which is very smooth over Lake Victoria and it takes you directly to Rusinga Island.

You have never seen the lake as good as when you are on such a ferry and then you understand why Lake Victoria was known as Nam Lolwe before the British baptized it with a foreign name after their queen..

Nam Lolwe means endless water. On that ferry, you see no end to Lake Victoria until you hit Rusinga Island on the other side.

I was with a whole bunch of kids on that trip and my sister happens to live just next to Luanda Kotieno and she showed us how things work there.

The kids wanted to walk around in Rusinga Island so we moved all over the place and ended up having lunch which we carried with us at the beachfront in a private section below the bridge.

Then you go to the bridge to cross over to Mbita. Below the bridge is a big causeway tall and wide enough to allow big water transportation and commercial vessels to cross over from one side of the lake to the next. That was never possible before and that is because Rusinga is a complete Island.

Let me give a little consolation to the Ruto/Uda group. President Uhuru Kenyatta is not going to be running all over the place with rallies for Raila and their Azimio team.

He is still the president of the country until a new person is elected to that office. So Uhuru will continue what he is doing now. He is very focused on development projects and particularly the big ones that he wants to finish before he vacates office.

And Uhuru is generally a polite person. He is not a bully and will not yell at Ruto the way Ruto yells and even insults him demanding that the president apologize to Kenyans for the handshake.

Uhuru has never asked Ruto to apologize to Kenyans for getting paid big money and getting all the benefits of the DP’s office while refusing to do any work related to the DP’s job description and instead of behaving as if he is the current president of our country while campaigning endlessly for 4 years now.

I read today Ruto promised Nairobi residents that he will build 100,000 houses for the poor in Nairobi and eliminate the slums altogether.

I am not making this up. This is Ruto’s plan at least for the rallies. By any calculation building, 100,000 houses alone would require something close to Kshs 500,000,000,000. That is Kshs 500 billion.

Now here is the question. Kenyan taxpayers and debts provided billions for Kimwarer and Arror dams to be built.

Those dams if they were ever built could now be providing incredible services to the Kenyan people and in this case in Ruto’s own backyard in Rift Valley.

That money was all stolen and Ruto is on record publicly defending that massive theft.

Now if you couldn’t use more than Kshs 100 billion to build dams for Kenyans but instead defended the theft of that money by some of your own appointees like Henry Rotich, the then-Treasury Secretary, what are you going to do with Kshs 500 billion?

Kaboom and it is all gone again and you pretend nothing was lost or stolen? Is that how the bottoms-up plans will work for Kenyans?

And one question Mr. Deputy President. You hold the second most powerful office in our country today. How many houses have you built for the Kenyan poor in Nairobi or elsewhere?

And you are going to eliminate slums. Is this the first time you have seen those slums? Maybe it is the first time you have seen them when you are trying to be our next president, but they have been there for most of the time you have been in power and they have lived there all that time.

Then building the roads and trading places for the street hawkers. They are burning the Gikomba market every other day. Can you as the DP at least do something about that and stop the burning and destroying of peoples’ livelihoods? Of course not. You want to talk and not to do anything. Kenyans understand that.

About your building sustainable infrastructure for small traders. Here is one of the markets in Guthurai in Nairobi.

These are the sentiments from the traders in Githurai.

“So many people have been run over by drivers and boda boda operators. Young children have been hit by boda boda guys who speed off leaving them in critical condition. Some are left to live their lives in wheelchairs and crutches,” said Kevin Githinji, a resident.

Business owners plying their trade in the area lamented that the poor state of the road has also denied them, customers, forcing some to shut down and relocate to better-served areas.

“First of all, the road is very dusty and whenever it rains the potholes fill up with water making it hard for both pedestrians and motorists to use. The cars splash dirty water on my produce and the customers buying vegetables at times,” said Naomi Mueni, a greengrocer.

That is the state of our country for the small traders make a living in a very hard way. What has been done to help these Kenyans in ten years of government where William Ruto has been the Deputy President. Nothing. Nada. Now it is talk and talks again.

Here is what Kenyans know for a fact. The kids didn’t die when they didn’t get the promised laptops but these people are dying in front of our eyes and people who have been in government like Ruto with ten years as a Deputy President and more than twenty years with all governments starting from the Moi government are now finally noticing them and making wild promises.

Kenyans are not stupid people by any stretch of imagination. They can see the trickery and they know it is all for someone to get more power to keep destroying their lives.

Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada

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