This week, the nation came together for the National Prayer Breakfast usually held at Safari Park Hotel every last Thursday of May. This year, it was held on Wednesday, June 7, away from tradition.
The event that is usually organised by the Bunge fellowship, which meets every Wednesday at 7am for prayers, has become a permanent feature of Kenya’s parliamentary calendar.
This year was the 20th since the breakfast was started in 2003 during the eighth parliament, and Kalonzo Musyoka was the first chairman of the fellowship. He later on became vice president in 2007. The theme of this year’s breakfast was reconciliation and it was very timely.
The event has become significant over time as it was in 2019 that the handshake between Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta graduated into a hug. However, this also meant that William Ruto lost out on the relationship that he once enjoyed with his boss Uhuru Kenyatta.
Before the 2017 elections, ODM strategists had opined that if Uhuru Kenyatta won his second term, William Ruto would automatically become president. They thus hatched a scheme to ensure that he and the president then went their separate ways, indeed they succeeded.
For two people who the media christened ‘dynamic duo’ and who wore same shirts and ties at some point, it’s consternation that by 2022, they weren’t seeing each other eye to eye. Usually, the president and the deputy sit on the same table during this occasion together with the two speakers of both the Senate and National Assembly.
In the 2020 prayer breakfast, DP Ruto used the occasion to position himself as a hustler who rose from selling chicken by the railway and without shoes, for him to make Sh60 that helped his father to buy him his first pair from a Mr Onyango.
In the 2022 prayer breakfast held on May 26, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto were not seeing eye to eye. The general election was less than three months away, yet the president had declared support for the opposition leader Raila Odinga. This day will remain etched in our country’s history.
The chair of the deputy president was removed and he was made to share a table with the two speakers of parliament, Kenneth Lusaka and JB Muturi. The president instead sat with Chief Justice Martha Koome and Attorney General Justice Kihara Kariuki.
It was real humiliation as they were placed next to the edge of the red carpet. In fact, one of the speakers' chairs was on the green carpet. When DP Ruto rose to speak, he asked his president for forgiveness, but his boss never reciprocated.
As things turned out, the Azimio brigade chose to boycott this year’s prayer breakfast. Ruto had since become president and Raila Odinga is now the leader of official opposition, despite backing by the then head of state.
In a reconciliatory move, President Ruto even promoted the lady in charge of protocol, who had moved chairs last year. Indeed, the first person to be given a job as East Africa Mediator for peace in Congo DRC was Uhuru Kenyatta during President Ruto’s inauguration.
In the spirit of reconciliation, the keynote speaker Lord Dr Michael Hastings from the UK made a passionate, well-reasoned speech. In his remarks, he opined that “if we feel our pain, we are alive, but if we feel the pain of others, we are human”. This clarion call was heeded by the President who rallied the congregation in asking them to feel the pain of 7 million Kenyans who are living in squalid conditions across the country.
According to the UN-Habitat, Kenya has a deficit of 2 million decent houses. The president took the time to urge leaders present not to “travel to the 1,411 slums of Kenya, take photos and ‘selfies’ and leave them as we found them. Let us help in building decent homes for them”.
The only Azimio leader present was Sabina Chege, the new Jubilee Party leader, who interestingly was clad in the blue Azimio colours and who took the time to make a clarion call for her counterparts to accept that they had lost in last year’s general election.
In fact, it was proffered that reconciling with the outcome of elections, was indeed what was needed. Of late, Kenyans have actually called out fake pastors and prophets in mainstream and, especially, non-mainstream churches after the Shakahola massacre expose. They have been accused of using the pulpit to solicit money from competing politicians, promising each one of them victory after praying for them.
The mainstream church leaders weren’t present, yet they played a key role in denying the Kenya Kwanza platforms in churches as directed by the state. However, this was a Bunge affair with the Bunge Choir of about 20 legislators singing so well, with some playing instruments and in complete uniform. This was a marked improvement over the years.
The event turned out to be a rallying point for all Kenyans to embrace economic measures aimed at getting us out of the debt hole and cash crunch in govt.
Speaker Moses Wetangula aptly put that Kenya would still rise again. He quoted Mathew 19:26 which says “With man, this is impossible, but with GOD, all things are possible”.
Chief Administrative Secretary - Office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary
