NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 22 – Deputy President William Ruto is now asking Opposition leader Raila Odinga and his former National Super Alliance (NASA) principals to stop distracting President Uhuru Kenyatta from delivering on the Big Four agenda.
Speaking when he attended Sunday service at A.C.K St. Luke’s Wang’uru Church in Kirinyaga County, Ruto said the leaders who had abused the agenda of the Handshake between the President and Odinga should now forge their own alliances.
The priority areas under the Big 4 Agenda include food security, universal health care, affordable housing and industrialization which are meant to provide a solid foundation for trade and investment for the country’s growth.
Ruto has in the past taunted ODM Leader Raila Odinga, Amani National Congress Leader Musalia Mudavadi, Wiper Leader Kalonzo Musyoka and Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula (FORD-Kenya) of using President Kenyatta to jump-start their political careers.
He claimed the country had failed to progress economically because the President had been reduced to an arbitrator in the on-going struggles with ex-NASA partners.
The Deputy President linked his remarks to Friday’s Court of Appeal judgement which upheld the nullification of the Building Bridges Initiative Constitution Amendment.
“I would to ask those leaders who entered the Government as result of the Handshake, that now the clamour of the BBI has been quashed, please allow the President to deliver services for the 45 million Kenyans. There is no point to continue hijacking the President to a level that he can no longer run the government,” he said.
He advised the leaders to go and craft policies that they will present to Kenyans ahead of next year’s general election.
Ruto termed the appeal court ruling as Godsent in order to humble a section of the country’s leaders who had attempted to dismember the Constitution.
“I believe that the BBI process was halted to remind others of us who wield influence and power, that there is a God in Heaven,” he told the congregation.
He also decried cases of threats and intimidation aimed at members of the clergy who have been associating with him.
“I am asking our religious leaders not to buy the blackmail, intimidation and the fear that is being instilled in them but to stand up for what is right,” the DP stated.
