Did Deputy President William Ruto go overboard with his sentiments allegedly directed to Raila Odinga at the National Prayer Breakfast meeting?
Ruto took a jibe at Odinga when he said that the former Prime Minister should be donated to United Kingdom so that the takes over from Theresa May who announced her resignation as PM.
As those who attended the breakfast meeting laughed at Ruto’s jibe towards Odinga, his (Raila) people at ODM were not happy.
They would later hit out at Ruto in a harshly-worded statement through Secretary General Edwin Sifuna.
Sifuna said the remarks by Ruto were uncalled for raising questions about the genuineness of the breakfast prayer attended by politicians led President Uhuru Kenyatta and was also graced by South Sudan President Salva Kiir.
According to Sifuna, Ruto was trying to seek Political relevance heading into 2022 by attacking Odinga time and again.
Sifuna asked Ruto to focus on his numerous accusations of land grabbing and corruption scandals.
He asked Ruto to accord Raila the respect he deserves as he is the man who gave him a job during the grand coalition government.
Alego Usoga MP Samuel Atandi asked Ruto to concentrate on providing a million jobs which the Jubilee governmenr promised young people during the campaigns.
The attacks to Raila came after a guests, Lord Michael Hastings, jokingly asked whether Kenya could spare one of its leaders to take up the British PM job.
BELOW IS THE ODM STATEMENT IN FULL
Ladies and gentlemen,
This morning, as has become tradition, the Country observed a day of reflection and prayer at this year’s National Prayer breakfast under the theme “A new dawn”. Kenyans no doubt remember last year’s prayer breakfast at which the leaders of the nation including President Uhuru Kenyatta, H.E Raila Odinga, Hon Kalonzo Musyoka and DP William Ruto, agreed to bury the hatchet and work together to promote peace, unity and tranquility across the country. They all supposedly united in a sincere gesture to bury the culture of divisive politics and chart a new path for our country. Apologies were tendered for the vitriolic and hurtful things that were said during the 2017 Election Campaigns. People hugged.
A year later, questions abound about the genuineness of this annual spectacle and the sincerity of our leaders – the smiles and hugs and niceties given that non-other than DP Ruto has dragged us back to the politics of intrigues, personalized attacks and insults sustaining a petty, juvenile and ill-informed political onslaught on Rt Hon Odinga. Even the solemn occasion of prayer for the nation’s many problems for him was but another platform to take another swipe at Hon. Odinga.
There are many more problems this country has that cry for solution. Among them corruption, land grabbing, political blackmail and constant threats of violence, all of which the DP’s imprimatur is almost always present. That the DP even gets to speak at these prayer breakfasts turns the event into a spectacle of hypocrisy.
Our young people require jobs, even as the DP obsesses with “offering” the Rt Hon Odinga jobs at every turn. This is laughable though because we all know who has capacity to find employment for the other. Kenyans know that it is Raila Odinga who gave Ruto a job as a minister in the grand coalition government, a job from which he was sacked due to rampant corruption.
It is also not lost on us that Jubilee promised Kenyan Youth a million jobs a year and that this promise, just like the stadiums, remain a mirage. In fact given his apparent enthusiasm for finding people jobs for H.E Raila, jobs Raila has neither asked for nor needs Ruto’s help to get, we shall soon be calling all the unemployed youth in this country to bring their CVS and march to the DPs office and dump them there so he can find them jobs, as that should be his focus.
We wish to make it clear that we are not prepared for empty sloganeering and promises of unity that do not translate to tangible results among the people. The day’s theme, ironic as it now looks, was building upon the events of last year when our leaders famously shook hands and whereas the President appears focused on the big 4 and the unity agreed upon during the handshake, his deputy consistently attempts to derail the country and take us back.
The DP should focus on salvaging his dwindling political fortunes, seeing as the country has read through his political blackmail and will no longer take his lies.