By Micah Kigen
It is high time and a matter of great national importance that President Uhuru Kenyatta urgently releases Deputy President William Ruto from his current Position and from the Executive to safeguard the country from the DP’s disruptive agenda.
Dr Ruto’s latest and ongoing political trajectory is outright rebellion and malicious sabotage of harmony in both government and the country; completely opposed to his boss’ noble endeavors that enjoy constitutional validity and overwhelming national support.
Besides, Dr Ruto’s current track record, while in public office, grossly violate Chapter Six of the Constitution as he has some very clear cut cases of contravening the constitutional thresh hold of integrity and bringing honor to public Office. On two occasions two national institutions of competent jurisdiction have found him in total violation of the law by being in possession of illegally acquired property; which despite being brought to his attention early enough, he never restored them to the rightful owner until when directed. The two cases, which involve land, qualify him as a land grabber; a partaker of one of Kenya’s most detested and divisive crimes.
The first was the illegal occupation of Mzee Adrian Muteshi’s 100 acres of land in the DP’s neighborhood in Uasin Gishu County which the High Court found him in breach and ordered him to return to the deprived owner and pay him some Sh 5million compensation.
The second is the land along Langata Road where stands his Weston Hotel. The National Lands Commission (NLC) has confirmed that the privatization of the land parcel was illegal and the original owner: Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) should be compensated. However, the KCAA have said officially that they never gave it away voluntarily and still want it back. Dr Ruto has not shown any willingness to return it to the owner.
In Kenyan law being in possession of stolen property is not a civil matter. It is a crime for which the culprit should be prosecuted and jailed and fined besides the property being returned to the victim. Dr Ruto is not above the Law. The High Court found him in possession of stolen land in a civil litigation; now the NLC has confirmed a similar offence. A proven land grabber is basically a land thief who contravenes Chapter 6 on integrity hence should not hold public office. President Uhuru should invoke Chapter 6 to show him the door alongside other public servants with similar or other crimes like MCAs who fight in Chambers and in Public functions, CS’ Principal Secretaries, and top officials in State Corporations founf looting public funds. They are all unfit to hold public office.
The other reason why the DP should be cut off and released to go out if he insists on playing “out-law politics” is his anti-people micro-management of Rift Valley Politics. He has, for strange reasons, pocketed majority of elected leaders from MCAs, MPs, Women reps, Senators and Governors and directed them to be his parrots and spanner boys to converting the Kalenjin electorate into a mere voting machine and silent political zombies never to be allowed to demand economic empowerment, betterment of their social welfare nor improvement of infrastructure.
Kalenjin elected leaders’ latest wild utterances and threats to the President and Prime Minister Raila Odinga over the ongoing war against corruption is clear evidence of how Dr Ruto has defiled a whole community by diverting their leadership into a personal defense team. To worsen it, these elected leaders are so shamelessly attempting to drag the entire Kalenjin community into Dr Ruto’s human and tribal shield to protect him from being taken to account over corruption cases he could be linked to.
The political temper tantrums and threats being thrown around by Kalenjin elected leaders notably Senators Kipchumba Murkomen and Samson Cherargei, Governors Sand, Jackson Mandago and MPs Kangogo Bowen, Caleb Kositany, Oscar Sudi and Nelson Koech who have in the past gone mute and AWOL when hot issues concerning crisis hurting farmers of Maize, Wheat, Tea, Dairy and also corruption in fertilizer distribution plus cattle rustling crop up reveal Dr Ruto’s anti people agenda in Rift Valley. Why are these elected leaders defending Dr Ruto and others cited in corruption on the Dams’ scandal but not willing to prioritize the millions of local wananchi who stood to benefit if corruption had not interfered with the construction of the dams. Are local Kalenjin wananchi children of a lesser God who should be left to suffer and perish?
More importantly, ever since the President set out to implement his legacy agenda anchored around the purge against corruption, uniting the country and boosting the economy through the big four agenda his Deputy launched a fierce insurrection within the political arena never witnessed in this country before. Never in Kenya’s history has a sitting President and government been so viciously fought from within or even without for pursuing just causes.
All past anti-establishment protests have been to confront and correct government excesses and illegalities against the population. That is how some of Kenya’s political greats like Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Martin Shikuku, Kenneth Matiba, JM Kariuki, Jean Marrie Seroney, CharlesRubia, Bildad Kaggia, Koigi Wa Wamwere, Bishop Alexander Muge, Bishop David Gitari, George Anyona, Tito Adungosi, GeorgeAnyona, Masinde Muliro andChelagat Mutai exemplified themselves.
They stood against the governments of the day during their time to oppose runaway corruption appearing to be state sponsored/tolerated, breakdown of the rule of law, destruction of vital institutions of governance, state sponsored ethnic strife and disunity amongst the citizenry, economic decay, dictatorship and other negatives by the state. No credible leader has ever opposed government when it was implementing good policies and programs.
To the shock of majority Kenyans, Dr Ruto personally and through proxy (his well-known political acolytes), blinded by his feeling of entitlement to the Presidency come 2022, has done the unimaginable:- launched a bitter, relentless battle against a government that has for once decided to fight the people’s war. The people’s war is the war to enforce Constitutionalism and the rule of war through reformed and invigorated: Directorate of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC); to unleash a thorough anti-graft campaign, to purge sectarian divisions within society and politics (handshake effect) and mainstream economic growth (Big 4 agenda)
Waging a powerful war against corruption and Uniting the various communities and socio-political formations within our borders are just about what the doctor prescribed for Kenya’s rescue, restoration take off and prosperity. The twin agenda are key cogs in our ever elusive pursuit for constitutionalism and the rule of law.
Yet as majority citizens unite in their millions to support the President and Prime Minister Raila Odinga plus the Independent Institutions undertaking these tasks for their patriotism and revolutionary sense of duty, Dr Ruto has bankrolled and launched a counter offensive to block and frustrate both his boss and the country from achieving the desired results.
The DP’s team of anti-reforms crusaders have demonized and frustrated the initial push for lifestyle audits for all government employees when they dismissed it as a maneuver aimed at framing the DP and scuttling his 2022 Presidential ambitions. Equally, they have demonized the war on corruption on same grounds and tribalized it after top officials in parastatals controlled by his wing of Jubilee were nabbed in criminal procurement and embezzlement transactions in their dockets and prosecuted.
To make matters worse the DP’s lieutenants in an obviously choreographed campaign have attempted hard to scuttle the anti-corruption war by blackmailing the President and his family by linking them to alleged and uncorroborated corruption scandals and daring him to let go the “apparent nabbed and being pursued” DP Ruto corruption suspects or get “severely punished soon in retaliation”. How? They haven’t expounded.
The same threats they have extended to PM Raila Odinga and the bosses of the EACC, DCI and ODPP to coerce them to abandon the anti-graft war.
Worse still they have extended their blackmail threats and theatrics to tribalizing the anti-graft war. Theirs is a clear case of using the Kalenjin tribe as their human shield. It is even more ominous here. The dragging in of the tribe could be a veiled threat of them resorting to causing ethnic strife unless they are spared of the corruption purge and allowed to pursue their wild entitlement for the Presidency in 2022. This tribal angle is very strange considering that the Kalenjin tribe never sent them to steal, loot public resources nor to abuse their privileged public offices. On the contrary the community is feeling embarrassed to be associated with this DP Ruto group for bringing them a bad name through their evil conduct in public office.
Now this invoking of tribe to fight this crude war against the State and the country is sacrilegious; the height of political stupidity actually. Already it is a criminal offence to cause disaffection against the State. Besides tribalizing the evil crusade to undermine and stop the anti-corruption campaign is equivalent of pro-war propaganda which is another serious crime in our Statutes.
It is for this deteriorating state of affairs in our country’s body politic that it is very necessary that the President moves with speed ask his deputy to move out and void the government of toxic, destructive politicking. Dr Ruto and his hangers on including Senator Kipchumna Murkomen, Senator Samson Cherargei, Mp Oscar Sudi and Aden Dualle among others have made themselves “Enemies of the People of Kenya”; hence they have no moral authority to lead the same people. Their “Political Excision” is a prime necessity.
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