•President Uhuru Kenyatta's allies say DP William Ruto should leave the party now
• They say the DP's attack on Jubilee party officials is a direct attack on the president
Image: DPPS
Deputy President William Ruto has come under a scathing attack from President Uhuru Kenyatta’s allies over claims ‘conmen have hijacked' the ruling Jubilee Party.
In a bare knuckle attack on DP Ruto, the President’s lieutenants want him to resign from the party and chart his own political path instead of attacking the outfit from within.
They say Ruto’s assertions that conmen and brokers have hijacked the party amounts to direct attack on the party leader, who installed the officials.
“If he feels that the party is being run by conmen, then I would actually expect of him to leave the party now and join a party that is not run by conmen,” Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu, a fierce critic of the DP, said on Friday.
In a tell-all interview with the Star on Thursday, Ruto hinted at ditching the Jubilee Party, which he claimed has been hijacked by people he termed conmen, brokers and busybodies.
Citing Jubilee vice chairman David Murathe, Ruto said the individuals have edged him out of party management and have allegedly plotted to deny him the ticket to fly the Jubilee flag in the 2022 presidential elections. A party he formed with President Kenyatta ahead of 2013 polls.
“The party has been hijacked by brokers who are running it through fear. Their word is the party position. The same virus that infected Kanu and killed it after the 2002 elections has come to Jubilee,” Ruto said.
“When the President disagreed with Kanu, he formed TNA and when I was done with ODM, I formed URP. In politics, there are always options and I will employ them at the right time,” Ruto added.
Former Mukurwei-ni MP Kabando wa Kabando, who was previously seen as pro-BBII politics, said UhuRuto was an unholy alliance born out of convenience and had to collapse 'in its very internal, inherent and informational contradictions.'
“This country is ripe for reincarnation of 2002 Rainbow, for a third and final liberation from unholy alliances, chicanery and ethnic bigotry. JP is derelict, is debris in political graveyard of all pretentious self-serving alliances,” he said.
He added that the political death of Jubilee happened the same day as NASA.
"The burial of JP and NASA is already concluded," Kabando said.
On Friday, Soy MP Caleb Kositany, a Ruto ally, reiterated DP’s position, saying Murathe and secretary general Raphael Tuju are the individuals who have taken the party hostage.
“Tuju and Murathe are no longer acting in the interest of the eight million members of Jubilee. They are acting in the interest of a few," Kositany said.
"We don’t know who they are acting for because an important item like BBI ... Jubilee never sat and gave a stand. If push comes to shove, we have political options which are valid and legal,” Kositany said, anchoring Ruto’s threats to ditch the ruling party.
Tuju and Murathe declined to respond to several phone calls and text messages seeking their reactions to the claims they have edged out the DP from the running of the party.
The two party bosses are said to be the eyes and ears of Uhuru in the the party.
But Ngunjiri said Ruto's attack on the party officials, who are serving at the behest of the President, is an attack on the party leader and warrants resignation.
“The President is very happy with the changes that have been made. They have been made according to his instructions,” Ngunjiri said.
The Nyeri Town MP added, “If it has reached the point where he is calling the party leader a conman, because that is what he is saying, then he should leave the party now.”
Nominated MP Maina Kamanda, another fierce critic of the DP, said Ruto’s claims of ‘conmen’ hijacking the party are ‘weighty.”
“Those are weighty matters. We consider them and call the media,” Kamanda said without divulging into the DP’s remarks.