The Executive Director of the Azimio Presidential Secretariat, Raphael Tuju, now claims that Deputy President William Ruto was actually paid to throw his weight behind President Uhuru Kenyatta in the Jubilee outfit.
Mr Tuju, who is also Jubilee’s former Secretary General says that the DP came with demands that needed to be met before declaring support for Mr Kenyatta in 2013, among them monetary offers.
“Let the people of Mount Kenya not think that Ruto supported Uhuru willingly in the first place, this is a person of blackmail. He was paid. I can confirm before a court of law how it went,” Tuju said in a Wednesday interview with Inooro FM.
“He came with conditions that had to be met in order for him to back Uhuru. To him, politics is a business. That is why when he was making appointments in the cabinets and parastatals, he had to be given a 50% share which he then gave to his people and his friends.”
While terming this year’s State House race as one which voters need to choose leaders based on character, Mr Tuju described DP Ruto, now front-runner of the Kenya Kwanza alliance, as an unscrupulous leader who cannot be trusted with the nation’s highest office.
“Trying to blackmail Kikuyus that he supported them is false. He was paid and this is someone you cannot trust with the Treasury and the Central Bank,” he said.
“What’s important in this election is the issue of character, what kind of person is William Ruto and his running mate Gachagua? Or Raila Odinga and Martha Karua?”
He defended Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition’s flag-bearer Raila Odinga’s decision to boycott Tuesday night’s Presidential Debate, saying sharing a stage with DP Ruto would only soil his (Odinga’s) name.
“Sitting with Ruto on the same stage, when we are very aware of his character, is looking for trouble. You will only emerge dirty,” said Tuju.
He claimed that Odinga’s attendance would not have been consequential in his quest for presidency, saying the questions that would have been raised in the forum will be answered in the town hall meetings the Azimio leader has organised instead.
Mr Odinga’s campaign secretariat on Sunday said that instead of the “traditional debate”, he and his running mate in the August 9 race, Martha Karua, will hold a televised town hall in Nairobi to engage voters.
“It would be a colossal mistake to reward such a person with a national debate…. In lieu of a traditional debate, we plan to take part in a televised town hall at Jericho Social Hall in Nairobi’s Eastlands with ordinary Kenyans to offer our solutions to the challenges facing the country and common people,” the secretariat’s spokesperson Prof Makau Mutua said in a statement.
