DP dismisses claims of fading bromance, says President will back him in 2022 

What you need to know:

  • Uhuru Kenyatta will support the candidate of the Jubilee Party in 2022. That you can take to the bank.
  • As to who that candidate will be is up to Jubilee and its structures to decide. If that candidate will be William Ruto, I can bet you Uhuru Kenyatta will support me.
  • If that candidate is going to be someone else, I can bet you I will support that candidate, and Uhuru Kenyatta will.

Three and a half years to the end of the Jubilee administration’s second term, what have been your biggest achievements?

We have moved this country forward. We have worked on four priority areas to put the country on a growth trajectory. We have done 650km of SGR. Jubilee has done 7,200km of tarmacked roads in seven years. That’s an average of 1,000km per year. Compare this to 11,500 by 2013 from the time of independence. We have connected 5.3 million Kenyans to the national grid. From 1963 to 2013 before we came to power, only 2.3 million had access to electricity.

Ordinary Kenyans are struggling to stay alive. Is there a different way you would have handled the economy?

People are running a false narrative that all the Jubilee administration has done is steal. It is true we’re facing difficult times; small-scale traders have not had it easy with prices of commodities shooting.

I can explain this in a number of ways: after the 2017 elections, we have tried to assemble the country together with the BBI taking a bit of the attention from some of these issues. We expended a bit of energy on the national unity project. It is the reason I want us to conclude it as fast as we can to focus on developing the country.

Kenyans no longer see the public display of comradeship between you and President Uhuru Kenyatta. When did things change and why?

I keeping seeing these stories to my amazement. They say the marriage is on the rocks, that the bromance in no longer there. My friend, Uhuru Kenyatta is married to Margaret, I am married to Rachel. There was no marriage between himself and I; we were elected by the people of Kenya – not because of bromance and all these things you keep talking about. We were elected on a platform to deliver on our campaign promises, not bromance.

But how do you deliver when the perception is you are not in tandem?

We are on our agenda. Forget about that narrative.

Could the friction in government today be informed by the idea that you are overshadowing the President?

I have a long history with President Uhuru Kenyatta. There are those peddling a narrative that I don’t respect the President, that we are not working together and all manner of stories. I knew Kenyatta somewhere around 1998/99 and we struck a very good rapport. For your information, I have been part of his journey and I don’t think there is any politician in Kenya today, not one, who has supported Uhuru Kenyatta more than me. Even when Moi wanted to nominate him to Parliament, I was the one Moi sent to negotiate with Mark Too to step down and give way for him. That is as far back as we go. In 2002, many people in Kanu were reluctant to support him. I went out of my way then to support him. Even when he was reading his concession speech that year, we were only three of us with him — the rest had fled.

Do you fear that he might betray you when you need him in 2022?

Uhuru Kenyatta will support the candidate of the Jubilee Party in 2022. That you can take to the bank. As to who that candidate will be is up to Jubilee and its structures to decide. If that candidate will be William Ruto, I can bet you Uhuru Kenyatta will support me. If that candidate is going to be someone else, I can bet you I will support that candidate, and Uhuru Kenyatta will.

You know the agreement between Uhuru and I was about more important things: stop politics of ethnicity. We have effectively put a stop to politics of violence especially in Rift Valley and Central. Our coming together was never about power. 

Your supporters have severally claimed that there is a plan to stop you from running for president in 2022. Do you believe this is the case? If so, who would want to stop you? Why?

Of course it would be very strange if there were no people plotting to stop me. This has not started now. There is always a cabal that wants to influence the course of politics from boardrooms and corners. You saw this with the Moi succession. You saw this in the Kibaki succession. In the case of Kibaki, a plot was hatched by our competitors to take us to The Hague. To lock us there so they can easily win. The whole Hague story was a political conspiracy. The same cabal which was operating from the OP (The Office of the President) then, even now they operate from there. That time they hired people to go to court arguing we were unfit to run for office. Then Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo held that view that we were unfit — he was not alone on this. They will intimidate my allies like they are doing; cases will be fabricated against you. You are seeing this with many MPs and governors. Like they failed in the past, they will fail again; this time around, their failure will be spectacular.

The DCI has reopened investigations into alleged land fraud, with which you had been charged in court and acquitted. What do you make of this? Have you been contacted? Will you step aside if charged afresh?

It is the same thing about the cabals I just explained. This land case was political then, it is now. You may want to know that the same characters are reviving The Hague cases.

As of last year, I was having a discussion with the director-general of NIS (National Intelligence Service DG Philip Kameru) and I learnt there are people here who are ready to come and open the ICC cases. The same way land cases are being revived, politically, to serve the interests of 2022.

Would you report to the DCI headquarters to record a statement if called upon on this recently revived case?

The land case was determined. It was a very straightforward case. For your information, I didn’t even have to defend myself. There was no case; it was dismissed at a very primary stage. The issue here was Kanu’s debt at the Transnational Bank. A piece of land was allocated with the instructions of the former President, the parcel was sold to Pipeline. Pipeline paid the money which went to the Transnational Bank, period. The bank accepted the receipt and that was it. Not a coin was paid to William Ruto. It was a political case as it is even now. The intention being to achieve a political end.