A section of Rift Valley legislatrs are pushing Deputy President William Ruto for a meeting to address growing fears that he has been sidelined by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Days after a mammoth rally in Bomet county, politicians from the region are unhappy about Ruto’s treatment and want an open forum to discuss his future.
The DP’s supporters are apprehensive that the Jubilee marriage and his comradeship with Uhuru could have hit rock bottom. He appears to have been elbowed from the inner sanctum of power.
A group calling itself the Kipsigis Professionals has petitioned Ruto to convene an all-inclusive leaders meeting to chart the Kalenjin community’s future.
In their petition, the opinion leaders called on the DP to urgently convene the session to discuss the socio-political problems plaguing the region, which they argue is being taken for granted.
“There are very many fundamental problems within our community that need to be urgently addressed,” the petition says.
It is signed by professionals Joseph Kirui, Kipruto Ng’eno, Paul Sigei, Stanley Mainek and Wesley Koech, among others.
“Viable solutions can only be achieved through an all-inclusive consultative process,” they said.
They want to discuss the March 9 handshake deal between President Kenyatta and Opposition leader Raila Odinga, the controversial Mau Forest evictions and the new national development implementation committee chaired by Interior CS Fred Matiang’i. Matiang’i seems to be sidelining Ruto who had been travelling around the country in thinly veiled campaign trips to inspect development projects.
Rattled by what they consider a wider plot by some Jubilee politicians to dim the DP’s 2022 presidential ambitions, Ruto’s Rift supporters want to hear precisely from him what he thinks about his relationship with the President. Their once warm relationship has cooled.
The professionals and leaders want the meeting despite Ruto’s assurances to supporters that he has not been sidelined, especially after Matiang’i’s elevation as overseer of all government projects.