- Ruto will comb through Lang'ata, Kibra, Westlands, Dagoretti North and Dagoretti South constituencies.
- The second in command has lately escalated his vote hunt for the over three million votes in Nairobi.
Image: DPPS
Deputy President William Ruto will on Tuesday storm ODM boss Raila Odinga’s Nairobi bases as he ramps up campaigns for his presidential bid.
Ruto will comb through Lang'ata, Kibra, Westlands, Dagoretti North and Dagoretti South constituencies.
In the last 10 years, Raila's ODM has controlled Kibra, Dagoretti South and Westlands.
The second in command has lately escalated his vote hunt for the over three million votes in Nairobi.
On Monday, the DP rescheduled his city rally that would have seen him tour Kibra and Lang'ata.
A programme shared with newsrooms last week showed Ruto was to camp at Nairobi westside as part of his six-day campaign blitz in the capital.
It was not, however, clear whether the rescheduling had anything to do with Sunday's chaos that almost disrupted Ruto’s Jacaranda rally.
Sources within Tangatanga told the Star that the DP took a break to take a review of his campaigns and will be hitting the ground on Tuesday.
Lang'ata MP Nixon Korir said the hustler team will be combing the westside constituencies.
“The Deputy President’s tour is tomorrow (Tuesday),” Korir said.
On Sunday, Ruto’s entourage faced resistance at Jacaranda Grounds in Embakasi East after it encountered stone-throwing youths forcing police to lob teargas.
The DP quickly linked Raila to the Jacaranda chaos, claiming the ODM boss has a known history of violence in his pursuit to achieve power.
“We know your track record. We know the people who propagate violence. We know the people who cannot accept the outcome of any election. We know the characters who swear themselves in all the time,” Ruto charged at Raila.
UDA on Tuesday also accused Raila of planning the chaos and demanded that the Interior ministry brings to book the perpetrators of Sunday's incident.
UDA chairman Johnson Muthama and party secretary general Veronica Mwangi claimed the former PM has resorted to violence while getting protection from the state.
“It is now clear that Raila Odinga wants the election and political discourse to be on his terms: centered around violence, conflict, confrontation and threat and leaning heavily on government protection,” UDA said in a statement.
“We take this opportunity to rebuke Odinga and ask him not to hide behind the handshake and state protection to terrorise this country.”
But on Sunday, Raila denied having a hand in the Jacaranda chaos and instead accused the DP of sponsoring the violence to lay ground for targeted attacks on people in his Rift Valley backyard.
“Ruto is simply setting the stage for the removal of madoadoa from the Rift Valley and, if need be, start a war in the Rift Valley,” Raila said in a statement.
Edited by A.N