By Ian
Omondi, NAIROBI Kenya
President of Kenya, Uhuru
Kenyatta has now told his Deputy President William Ruto to resign from
government if he is dissatisfied with its operations and the direction it
is moving in.
President Uhuru Kenyatta (L) and Deputy President William Ruto
The President, in a candid chat
with media editors at the State House in Nairobi on Monday, left little
doubt as to the broken state of his relation with Ruto; his deputy of nine
years and running mate in two elections.
President Kenyatta told off the
DP for criticising the same government that he serves yet being unwilling to
ship out, hence leaving the country in a state of confusion over his stand.
According the Head of State, it
is not right for DP Ruto to choose what government projects to take pride and
credit in and which ones to distance himself from.
“I have an agenda that I was
elected on, and that work must continue, and it would really be the honourable
thing that if you’re not happy with it that you would actually step aside and
allow those who want to move on, and then take your agenda to the people. Which
is what happens in any normal democracy, because you can’t have your cake and
eat it,” he said.
“You can’t, on the one hand, say
‘I’m not going,’ and then at the same time ‘I don’t agree.’ You’ve got to
decide, because you must be principled in that endeavour. So that you don’t
confuse people; on the one hand you want to sing the praises of a government,
that you’re saying ‘we have done this’ and you want to ride on them, but yet on
the other side of your mouth you’re talking another language.”
President Kenyatta said the
agenda on which he was elected alongside DP Ruto must continue, intimating that
no differences between them will come in between that.
He added that despite the flop of
the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) at the Court of Appeal, it was just one
of his projects and he will now focus on the Big Four agenda in order to move
the country forward.
“I will not be deviated from the
agenda I have set on course. BBI was just one of them, we still also have the
Big Four which we have been consistently following and we will continue with
the agenda as we have it,” he stated.
“People know what happens when
you disagree with each other in developed civilised democracies, what people
do, and I would hope that people would have the courage and the guts to do that
instead of throwing stones in the same house that you’re living in.”
The Commander-in-Chief further
intimated that it is DP Ruto’s political ambitions that probably caused the
rift between them, however adding that he has never stood in his (Ruto’s) way
as far as that is concerned.
He said he only has issues with
the manner in which the DP chose to go around the ambitions; by side-lining
himself from a government that he was elected to serve.
“I have no idea of what has
transpired, except for the fact that probably he is trying to create a base for
him and for his future politics, which is his right, I have never denied him
that and he’s free to do so. But I feel it’s unfortunate that the manner in
which he’s doing it by going against the same government that he’s serving is
wrong,” said President Kenyatta.
“Because the issues that we have
been trying to achieve with this BBI, are the same issues that brought me and
him together. So if I want to now expand that, because I believed and I thought
that that is what we were trying to do, if you go back all the way to 2013, it
has always been my agenda to bring the people of Kenya together.”
He further added: “So if
divisions of 2007 brought us together, why can’t we also have these divisions
bringing more on board? What is the problem with that, it doesn’t deny you of
your chances, because at the end of the day, it is not Uhuru who elects, it is
the people of Kenya. So what is the problem if we have more on board and have a
situation whereby everybody feels that regard-less of who wins, no Kenyan has
lost, and every Kenyan can leave feeling a winner.” - Citizen TV
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