Deputy President William Ruto’s allies yesterday resuscitated the ICC ghost and claimed the DP’s detractors were fuelling talk the case could be revived.
The politicians claimed the Hague-based International Criminal Court was working with Ruto’s enemies, whom they did not name, to breathe new life into the case against Ruto with the hope of blocking his path to State House in 2022.
The conversation was triggered last week when the ICC presented its annual report to the United Nations Security Council in which it said it was still actively gathering evidence about the Kenyan cases.
Yesterday, 20 MPs dismissed reports of fresh or ongoing investigations, alleging Ruto’s enemies were behind the scheme to have him hauled before the court again.
But his allies claimed the tactics would not block Ruto from succeeding President Uhuru Kenyatta.
They said claims of the ongoing ICC investigations were informed by selfish leaders “who would not want to see Kenya move forward”.
Read:
Joining forces
“These so-called ICC reports are not coming from heaven, but from within; those propagating it are the enemies of the people. But no evil scheme will stop an idea whose time has come,” Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung’wa said.
He said nothing would sever the tie between Uhuru and Ruto.
“You were taken to The Netherlands with the President, you emerged victorious. You will still emerge a winner in this episodic witch-hunt and eventually be our President,” Tetu MP James Gichuhi said.
The crimes against humanity case against Ruto and former radio presenter Joshua Sang collapsed in 2016 after prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she did not have enough witnesses to successfully prosecute the case.
The collapse of the Ruto case in 2016 followed that of Uhuru, former police commissioner Hussein Ali, former Cabinet minister Henry Kosgey and former head of Public Service Francis Muthaura.
In 2012, Uhuru and Ruto joined forces to run for President and Deputy on a joint Jubilee ticket.
In a well-oiled campaign thereafter, Uhuru framed the ICC as a ‘neo-colonial’ court that violated Kenya’s sovereignty and showed bias against Africa.
This narrative resonated with a group large enough to produce electoral victories in 2013 and 2017.
Once they came to power, the two continued with their anti-ICC rhetoric that led to Kenya supporting the ICC plummet from 70 per cent in 2010 to just under 40 per cent in mid-2013.
The two celebrated as the ICC dropped their cases in late 2014 and 2016, citing obstruction and witness tampering. Uhuru also enjoyed the fruits of international campaigning in early 2017, when the African Union passed a resolution calling for states to withdraw en masse from the Rome Statute.
Read:
Ruto allies are hopping to apply the same formula to propel their man to top seat. Speaking in Nyeri yesterday in the presence of the Deputy President during a church service at the Presbyterian Church of East Africa Gaaki in Tetu constituency, the leaders vowed to fight ICC again should the court restart the case. “We will use the same script we used in 2013 to ensure that ICC and its associates are defeated and Ruto wins,” Migori governor Okoth Obado said.
But Opposition leaders were quick to criticise Ruto for reviving the debate on the ICC. ODM leaders accused Ruto of seeking to whip up emotions about election violence after Kenyans have already moved on. ODM national chairman John Mbadi said Ruto had nothing to fear and should first concentrate on serving as DP instead of introducing “irrelevant debates”.
“He clearly must be running out of ideas long before the real race starts,” Mbadi said. Leaders present included Governors Mutahi Kahiga (Nyeri), Obado (Migori), MPs Anthony Kiai (Mukurweini), Rigathi Gachagua (Mathira), Rahab Mukami (Woman Rep, Nyeri) and Gichuki Mugambi (Othaya).