William Ruto recounts night meeting in Kalonzo’s residence
Deputy President William Ruto at a rally in Ndalu in Tongaren constituency, Bungoma County, on July 3, 2017. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
Mr Ruto claimed that Mr Musyoka told him and Mr Kenyatta quite bluntly that they should make way for him to run for President because they were going to jail anyway.
Mr Musyoka alleged that the DP and Mr Wanjigi were friends who fell out over the mega deals of the standard gauge railway and JKIA’s planned second runway after Jubilee won the 2013 elections..
Mr Musyoka, further, challenged Mr Wanjigi to come out and tell Kenyans the truth about his relations with President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto.
It is the stuff of a political thriller, with all the cynical intrigues and power plays that Kenyans never get to see play out in public.
In an interview on Citizen TV on Sunday night, Deputy President William Ruto recounted a tense meeting between him, former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, President Uhuru Kenyatta (then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance) and tender baron Jimi Wanjigi.
Mr Ruto claimed that Mr Musyoka told him and Mr Kenyatta quite bluntly that they should make way for him to run for President because they were going to jail anyway.
“You will be in jail for 10 years,” Mr Ruto quoted Mr Musyoka as telling them, advising them to support him with the promise that he would back them for the presidency when they came out of jail.
DENIED ALLEGATIONS
He also claimed that Mr Musyoka introduced them to Mr Wanjigi and “he knew him better”.
Mr Musyoka denied the allegations, countering that the DP and Mr Wanjigi were friends who fell out over the mega deals of the standard gauge railway and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport’s planned second runway after Jubilee won the 2013 elections.
A bitter former VP said he had “nothing to do with Mr Wanjigi”, who, he claimed, assisted the Jubilee Alliance to “steal the 2013 elections”.
Mr Musyoka, who described the DP's allegations as “the joke of the year”, challenged Mr Ruto to deny that Mr Wanjigi assisted them to “fix” the last elections.
TAKE LESSER POSITION
Referring to Mr Ruto’s narrative that it was Mr Musyoka who introduced them to Mr Wanjigi, the Nasa presidential running mate argued that when the DP and President Kenyatta went to his house in Karen, they were going to inform him to take a lesser position, and not the candidate.
At the time, he said, they were still operating under the aegis of the "G7" group.
“I leave it to Kenyans to decide between me and Ruto who is telling the truth,” he said.
He recalled that at one time before the 2013 elections, when he visited Mr Ruto, who had come home from hospital, he met Mr Wanjigi in the DP’s house.
The DP and Mr Musyoka are neighbours in Karen. “Jimi and Ruto are very close. Before the elections, I went to see him and I met him with Jimi in his house.
TELL KENYANS THE TRUTH
I am not a businessman like they are. Everybody should come out and carry his own cross,” he said.
Mr Musyoka, further, challenged Mr Wanjigi to come out and tell Kenyans the truth about his relations with President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto.
In Mr Ruto’s recollection, however, the former Vice-President attempted to use The Hague cases, which Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto were facing at the time, to rally them behind his presidential bid in 2013 on a Jubilee Alliance ticket.
Mr Musyoka’s version of events is different. In his book Against all Odds, he wrote that before the 2013 General Election, he, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto had an agreement that Mr Musyoka would be the presidential candidate and Mr Kenyatta his running mate while Mr Ruto, then the Eldoret North MP, would to be majority leader in Parliament.
He said things changed when Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto arrived at his house with Mr Wanjigi in tow.
WORKED CLOSELY
During the Citizen TV interview, Mr Ruto implied that Mr Musyoka worked closely with him and Mr Kenyatta in the hope of capitalising on their predicament caused by the cases they faced at the International Criminal Court arising from the 2007/8 post-election violence to become their preferred presidential candidate.
Mr Ruto said Mr Musyoka did not hide his game plan from them, adding that during their last meeting, he told them point-blank to shelve their bid “because we would be in jail for 10 years”.
Mr Ruto claimed that Mr Musyoka's position was the reason they fell out with him after “we realised that we were dealing with an enemy,” after he allegedly laid bare his ambitions to their face.
In Against all Odds, written with former Nation journalist Caleb Atemi, Mr Musyoka recalls in cinematic detail the tension-gripped night meeting in his Karen home in which he claims the Jubilee duo pushed him out of their alliance.
COLLAPSE OF UNITY
But Mr Ruto, responding to the claims as read out to him by the TV interviewer, described Mr Kalonzo’s allegations as “a lot of nonsense,” saying something more serious led to the collapse of the unity that had seen the trio run joint campaigns against Mr Odinga.
He said there was no agreement among the three about a Musyoka candidacy, adding that the reason they kicked out the Wiper leader was that he had told them “a very weird thing” during one of their meetings.
“People should be honest - in fact, that night the reason why we did not engage Kalonzo Musyoka is because he told us a very weird thing.
Businessman Jimi Wanjigi (left) confers with Nasa co-principal Kalonzo Musyoka during a rally at Uhuru Park on April 27, 2017. Little good is ever written about Mr Wanjigi. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
"He told us, 'Gentlemen, why can’t you allow me to become the president. In any case, you will be in jail for 10 years after which, when you come back, I will be through with being the president and then you can take over from there,” said Mr Ruto.
LEFT IN A HURRY
He went on: “How does that sound, now that Kalonzo decided to bring out this thing? I was not going to say it, but now that he said it…, that is why we left his house in a hurry because we realised we are not dealing with a friend,” said the DP.
Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, though facing charges of crimes against humanity at The Hague, went on to win the election.
The charges against them were dropped later, Mr Kenyatta’s on December 5, 2014 and Mr Ruto’s on April 5, 2016.
The controversial issues of corrupt cartels financing elections also came up, with Mr Ruto challenging the opposition to come out clearly on why their campaigns are allegedly being funded by people with dirty hands and stop making false allegations against the government.
“The issue of Nasa being funded by corrupt cartels did not come from us, it came from investigative journalism,” he said.
CORRUPTION CARTELS
Responding to allegations that he had accused the Nasa coalition of being funded by Mr Wanjigi, the DP said the businessman's name was introduced by Mr Musyoka himself and he is the best person to explain that to Kenyans.
“The name Jimi Wanjigi did not come from me, it came from Mr Musyoka and, therefore, he must be knowing more about him and about the corruption cartels.
"Maybe he should get an opportunity to explain himself,” he said, adding, “I think Kalonzo should be answering the allegations that they are getting money, proceeds of corruption deals, instead of dropping names.”
Mr Ruto did not deny knowing Mr Wanjigi but he denied having been funded by him.
HYPOCRISY
Mr Wanjigi's involvement in politics and public procurement is causing a storm after a Nation exposé. He is now a member of Nasa.
The Nasa team accused Jubilee of hypocrisy for claiming that Nasa was funded by corruption cartels while in actual fact, Mr Wanjigi funded the Jubilee campaign in 2013.
Fighting corruption and "state capture" — a phrase that refers to external forces taking over the formulation of policy and the exercise of State power for personal gain — is one of the 10 Nation agenda points for this election.
Mr Wanjigi was linked to massive corruption and threats on the life of former anti-corruption czar John Githongo in a 2006 parliamentary report.
