NAIROBI, Kenya Mar 6 – Deputy President William Ruto now says Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Leader Raila Odinga had settled for a retirement package during the handshake talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Ruto who is currently in the United Kingdom where he was to meet Kenyans living in the Diaspora later today had earlier while in the US given his account of the handshake agreement between Odinga and President Kenyatta.
“I had been informed that Raila Odinga had agreed that he wanted to be facilitated to retire and I remembers asking really do you expect? We know Raila Odinga, and we know his games,” Ruto said in an interview with Voice of America during his tour of the US.
The Deputy President observed that Odinga and President Kenyatta went behind his back to formulate agreements of a handshake that he was not well aware of.
The second in command decried that the March 2018 handshake developed and his fears on President Kenyatta’s dalliance with Ruto saw the light of day.
Ruto indicated that he knew that Odinga would initiate a plot to change the constitution through the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).
“I was saying that time I don’t think Raila Odinga will retire he will start talking about the constitution. Every fear that I have had has come to be,” Ruto noted.
The presidential contender observed that his mistrust with Odinga emanated from their working relationship in ODM in 2007.
“We have been on the same side but when you work with people you realize that there are people you can work with and people you can’t work with. I have no problem with the handshake, I have a problem with what it became. It became what we didn’t agree it to be and with that people of Kenya lost,” he stated.
Ruto is said to be a political student of Odinga when he sat in the ODM’s Pentagon in the run-up to the infamous 2007 elections.
Political pundits have linked similarities between the two leaders their strong character and charisma even when the odds are against them.
Odinga and Ruto now facing a 2022 political duel with their political arsenals almost at par.
Last week, Odinga said he was sure of trouncing Ruto in the August Polls, terming him ‘lightweight political kid’.
Odinga pointed out that in his political life he has seen giants and toddlers when it comes to politics, and he was sure he would defeat Ruto as he was a junior politician.
“After holding him in my hands (Ruto), I realized he is a juvenile who I will trounce in the polls,” Raila said.
“He (Ruto) has been constantly referring to me as a state project. If he is man enough then let him face off with me on August 9 and he will know that he was once my political student,” he added.
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