Jubilee Party vice chairman David Murathe has questioned Deputy President William Ruto’s frequent tours, the latest to the larger Mt Kenya region.
Murathe, who does not see eye to eye with the DP, said Ruto’s latest tour is questionable.
While accepting that the DP has the freedom to visit any part of the country, Murathe said that Ruto seems to have a hidden agenda for Central and urged residents to be careful.
“We feel that the Deputy President is on a radicalisation mission in Mt Kenya and we are cautioning our people,” Murathe said.
“We used to have Mungiki in Central region… Now when you bring this narrative of the ‘haves and haves not’, that was the Mungiki philosophy…”
He also criticised the DP’s empowerment movement geared towards the youth and women.
“Whatever we are seeing him doing in the Mt Kenya region, he should be doing that in the Rift Valley and we see it. There is something which is not adding up about the script that they are running up in the Mt Kenya region.”
The vice chairman added that the DP has been selective in his tour of the region, being accompanied by legislators who are coming from other constituencies.
“If it’s something that will benefit our women and the youth, why don’t you go with the leadership of that particular constituency?”
Ruto will this weekend step up his quest to endear himself to the vote-rich Mt Kenya region, largely considered President Uhuru Kenyatta’s stronghold.
The DP has planned a series of meetings in Murang’a, Kirinyaga, Nyeri, Tharaka Nithi counties from Friday to Sunday.
Coming days after the launch of the Building Bridges Initiative at the Bomas of Kenya, where Uhuru referred to Ruto as an impatient deputy who had abandoned their succession plan, the DP and his troops will try to tone down the President’s remarks.
During the BBI launch, Uhuru admitted that every politician, himself included, had been part and parcel of bad politics. He also asked Ruto to stop early campaigns.
On Tuesday, the National Council of Elders, led by its patron and Kenyatta’s cousin Kung’u Muigai held a meeting with Ruto and talked glowingly of the ceasefire between the two Jubilee giants.
Meanwhile, regarding there being no official announcing of the launch of the BBI report at the Bomas of Kenya on Monday, Murathe said the event was a continuation of the first process which had already been launched.
“What was brought, which had been received by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga in Kisii was the validated report of the task force.”