By Moses Kandie
Once again, Mt. Kenya politicians are putting Deputy President William Ruto in a corner they hope will make him serve them till they expire him naturally.
The Deputy President is not to have a mind of his own or a future of his own as he clings to President Uhuru’s 10 years, awaiting his own 10 years. One tactic Mt. Kenya is currently employing is to project you as a possible ‘future’ president, as they do all they can to mess up that future for you, in the present.
It is on record – and Ruto’s law Karim Khan has pointed it out severally – that Ruto was fixed by people in President Uhuru’s government, most of whom were high up in PNU (Kibaki wing) of the Grand Coalition government.
These people, the most prominent being Nancy Gitau, Mutea Iringo and Francis Kimemia, are still very powerful figures in Uhuru regime.
Sources privy to the ICC cases indicate that at least 8 senior government officials at that time, all allied to the PNU wing of the coalition, gave sworn affidavits/testimonies to the ICC linking Ruto to the electoral violence and which formed the strongest crux on the Ruto case.
The evidence by these eight senior government officers far outweigh what Kenyans have heard so far from the over twenty-eight witnesses who have so far testified against the Deputy President. Recently, it was revealed that almost all the witnesses who have so far testified against the Deputy President were members of the PNU party (you can guess their ethnicity). Every time Ruto allies call for the expulsion from government of the FIXERS, Mt. Kenya MPs have been silent, kept a distant and altogether avoided showing the disgust and outrage that is necessary to make these officers exit.
Instead, they’ve taken to prayers and more prayers during the day, and tossing glasses of wine and beer at night, hoping that the Deputy President will soon be convicted, thus give them reasons to choose someone else – someone already anointed!
Recently, close Ruto allies called on former Prime Minister, who was Ruto’s boss during and after the 2007 post poll violence, to stand up for the Deputy President. To have swallowed their pride and arrogance and humbly returned to Odinga spoke volumes, but also scared thousands, especially the Mt. Kenya wing of the Jubilee Alliance.
Ordinarily, one would expect those who want Ruto to be President in 2022 to also wish he is freed in 2015. Funnily, TNA politicians, the constituency which peddles this 2022 hogwash most, do not want Ruto to do all he can to be free – including reaching out to Raila Odinga – to testify for him.
That they are too concerned with 2017 political calculations, to go as far as attempt to ‘block’ Ruto from receiving help from any quarter he may so as to be a free man, tells you the kind of hubris that informs the current ‘panic’ among Mt. Kenya politicians.
Ruto should not allow these people to arm twist him.