• According to Kuria, the fallout between Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto was as a result of Uhuru’s failure to demonstrate good leadership in government.
• Kuria accused the president of being afraid of his own shadow by making the impeachment allegations.
Image: FREDRICK OMONDI
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria has said he regrets that the alleged impeachment plot against President Uhuru Kenyatta failed.
Whilst stating that there wasn’t such a plot, Kuria said it would have nonetheless been a fair game had it really happened.
“Why did it fail? I regret why it failed,” Kuria said.
According to him, the fallout between Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto was as a result of Uhuru’s failure to demonstrate good leadership in government.
The MP took a direct swipe at the president accusing him of driving the country into economic ruins.
“We are doing badly as a country. I don’t know why it failed,” he reiterated.
Kuria spoke on KTN on Saturday night. He was responding to questions relating to government’s development record in Central Kenya.
The Deputy President has since denied claims by Uhuru’s inner circle linking him to a plot to impeach the president.
Ruto said he is a law abiding citizen incapable of scheming to topple a government he put in office.
Kuria accused the President of being afraid of his own shadow by making the impeachment allegations.
When asked about his opinion on the President’s perceived neglect of the Mt Kenya region, Kuria said the whole country, and not just Mt Kenya, was a casualty of the Uhuru's bad leadership.
“The point of whether Mt Kenya has been developed or neglected is a secondary point. The first point is that the president has mismanaged the country across board,” Kuria said.
The MP said Mt Kenya would be better off under a Ruto presidency.
He absolved the DP from Jubilee’s shortcomings in its second term saying Uhuru sidelined him from government soon after the 2017 general election.
“President Kibaki had three vice presidents. Who mentions them? The buck stops with the president.
“Even if the deputy would behave badly, it speaks about the leadership qualities of the president,” Kuria remarked.
The Chama Cha Kazi party boss cited incomplete development projects as the hallmark of the Jubilee administration's flaws.
“We have more than 400 projects in rural Kenya that have stalled. Contractors have abandoned sites because they are not being paid.”
Without giving evidence, he listed Kisii and Nyamira counties as leading with 46 abandoned road projects.
He said mega projects such as the Nairobi Expressway have masked the reality on the ground.
“What used to happen during Kibaki’s time, there used to be some balance between mega projects and small projects. Right now you hear of a single project costing Sh130 billion,” Kuria said.
“How many rural roads could have been done by that kind of money?" he posed.
The outspoken legislator painting a picture of a regime that has neglected the ordinary citizen. Poverty, failed businesses and thriving auctioneers are all there is to show under Uhuru’s tenure, he said.
“We have our priorities upside down,” Kuria stated, adding that all the billions spent on the mega projects never benefit Kenyans since Chinese contractors import everything, including labour, from China.
Kuria said he felt very embarrassed to have been part of the Jubilee regime on account of its insatiable borrowing that now has the country ‘on a life support machine.’
“Since 2014, I was a member of the Budget Committee. When we started asking questions (about government’s borrowing) we were fired,” he said.
On June 25, 2020, the Jubilee Party initiated a purge on perceived rebels and kicked out 16 MPs allied to DP Ruto from parliamentary committees.
A day later, six more legislators were discharged from various National Assembly committees. The casualties included Kuria.
Five days prior, Majority Leader Aden Duale, a Ruto confidant, had been replaced by Kipipiri MP Amos Kimunya.
The purge took a lull before the axe fell again on six more legislators on February 2, 2022.
The Jubilee leadership said the latest offensive targeted remnant rebels who opposed the Political Parties (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
When questioned on his allegations that he helped rig Uhuru into office, Kuria downplayed the matter and stated that mother tongue influence apportioned his remarks a different meaning.
He was asked, “Mliimba ama mliiba?” - Did you sing or did you steal?
“You know we have all these linguistic challenges, but we didn't choose where to come from. So all our ethnic influence, accent and all that can sometimes get lost in the translation,” Kuria said.
“But it’s on record...tuliimba ndani, ndani ndani to the state house.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) summoned the MP to appear before its Code of Conduct enforcement committee on March 30, 2022 to explain himself on the matter.
The case will be heard on April 7, 2022.