Deputy President William Ruto has told Jubilee secretary general Raphael Tuju and other party officials to stop hate and division politics.
Speaking at Namanjalala and Kipsis secondary schools grounds in Trans Nzoia and Bungoma counties, DP Ruto saidJubilee party officials should focus on development and national unity, which is the agenda of the party.
“Our party officials in Jubilee must know that they are managing our party that is responsible for the development of the country. And as a party, we undertook to unite the country, eliminate ethnicity, hate and division and build the country on the basis of manifesto that brings development to all corners of this nation,” the Deputy President said without mentioning names.
He was reacting to a leaked phone call in which Tuju is heard praising former MP George Nyanja for a statement he made to the effect that Ruto should not visit Kiambu unaccompanied by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
In the call, Tujku is heard telling Nyanja that instead of Ruto contributing in other church harambees, he should first reconstruct the Kiambaa Church that was burnt down during the 2007-08-post-election violence. Women and children were killed in the arson.
Some Jubilee MPs allied to the DP have also demanded the resignation of Tuju for “undermining the party from within”.
Among the MPs is Kandara MP Alice Wahome who said, “We cannot have a Secretary General who betrays the very government we have formed…you must immediately tender your resignation to the President and let the party pick someone else.”
Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichungw’ah Ichungwa said Tuju was undermining President Kenyatta and the Deputy President’s stand of uniting Kenyans.
“We want to be very clear as elected members of the Jubilee Party that whether you are a CS, PS or appointed leader in any capacity, we will not allow you to undermine the project of uniting Kenyans that was started by President Kenyatta and his deputy,” Ichungw’ah said.
In December last year, Tuju was it again when he said Ruto is not the party’s automatic choice to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2022.
Tuju said the choice of candidate is governed by the party’s constitution, which makes no mention of an automatic presidential ticket as postulated by DP Ruto’s allies.
“We have a president who is the party leader and we have a deputy President who is the deputy party leader… So that line -up is there, but we also have a constitution indicating how we appoint our candidate for a presidential candidacy and as far as I am concerned nothing has changed,” Tuju said in an interview with Citizen TV.
