The Kikuyu Council of Elders want nothing to do with Deputy President William Ruto once their very own President Uhuru Kenyatta finishes hi tenure in 2022.
The Council now wants Ruto to retire together with Uhuru Kenyatta when his term expires in 2022.
Yesterday, the council’s national secretary general Peter Munga claimed Ruto is part and parcel of the current presidency and should therefore prepare to exit with the Uhuru administration.
“As a Council we are very serious that he [Ruto] has to pack with Uhuru. If Uhuru has to leave in 2022, the deputy should follow suit.”
Munga said Ruto should be satisfied with his 10-year tenure as DP because he has always been vowing to give his best advice to his boss [Uhuru].
“If he has given his best, what would he be doing after 10 years? He would be obsolete,” Munga said.
In a possible pointer to deep-seated grievances, Kikuyu Elders official Munga claimed that the DP’s share in government has been shared solely among his Kalenjin community, while the President is forced to apportion his ‘share’ with the entire country.
He warned Central Kenya politicians accompanying the DP on his political travels to stop and concentrate instead on economic development for the benefit of their constituents.
“This is no time for campaigning, the 2022 election should not even be on the lips of any Mt Kenya politician. They should be talking about roads that need rebuilding, coffee [sector] that needs to be fixed, the tea sector that needs to be managed and the dairy industry and horticulture that have been mismanaged by having 35 years of non-Kikuyu ministers of agriculture.”
On Monday, the chairman of the Nyeri chapter of the Kikuyu Council of Elders, David Muthoga, stated that the community will negotiate with all presidential candidates and support whomever will give them the best deal.
The statement, coming against a backdrop of conflicting statements by elected leaders from Central, undermined the narrative that the Kikuyu as a community will back Ruto to succeed Uhuru.
Munga, who is the overall boss of the quasi-political council, reiterated Muthoga’s position and accused some leaders of stealing from their own people.
“You look at the looting that is being done by the people who are in charge of the NCPB, they are all people from the North Rift,” he said.
The elders’ statement appeared to deepen the tension in the Jubilee Party even as reports emerge that some individuals purporting to be allied to the DP are in the process of registering another party as Plan B for 2022.
The Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndungu said they have received applications for the registration of two political parties this year — the United Green Movement and Grand Dream Development Party.
“We haven’t registered fully any political party but we have received applications and two have received interim certificates,” she told the Star.
However, she could not immediately disclose the interim party officials.
Some politicians from the Rift Valley had also sought unsuccessfully to register another — Hustlers Democratic Party — whose names and symbols were rejected for bearing close resemblance to Jubilee and the disbanded URP.
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