A meeting between ODM leader Raila Odinga and a group of leaders from the Mt Kenya region yesterday added to intrigues of the 2022 game plan. The meeting further raised questions regarding the former’s plans, including the possibility of a fifth stab at the presidency in 2022 considering it came barely 24 hours after another group of leaders in the region reportedly called on Deputy President William Ruto to retire along with the President in 2022.
Yesterday’s group was led by former MPs Kabando wa Kabando (Mukurweini) and Jamleck Kamau (Kigumo) who said the region owed Ruto no debt.
The group, comprising former legislators and professionals from the region asked the Deputy President and his allies to respect President Uhuru Kenyatta’s and Raila’s Building Bridges Initiative, the fight against corruption and the Big Four Agenda.
“We are here to represent various caucuses that have been meeting. We have come out with a strong resolve informed by the desire to have things work.
One of them is to firmly have the handshake work. We have also resolved to support the crackdown on runaway corruption,” said Kabando after the meeting with at Raila’s Capitol Hill office which extended to a “working” luncheon at a city hotel.
The politicians said campaigns for the 2022 elections were premature since the polls are four years away.
According to The People Daily, the leaders said if there are any political debts to be paid by Central Kenya, then Raila is owed by the community dating back to before independence when Jaramogi Oginga Odinga supported the founding President Jomo Kenyatta and in 2002 when the ODM leader backed Mwai Kibaki with his famous “Kibaki Tosha” declaration.
They urged the President to be steadfast in his ongoing war against corruption.
“Mr President, be merciless and crack the whip. Purge from government the merchants of graft,” said Kabando.
The leaders called on public servants and legislators who, they said, are supporting the perpetrators of corruption to vacate office.
“We are telling those opposed to the lifestyle audit ordered by the President to vacate the offices they are holding on behalf of the people. We are also telling them that the President and Raila are keen on uniting the country and ask them to support the initiative rather than fight it,” said Kamau who lost to Mwangi Wa Iria in the race for Murang’a governor.
Former Murang’a Senator Kembi Gitura wondered why some politicians are not supporting the President’s lifestyle audit plan.
“The lifestyle audit which has been instructed by the President is not a ‘please’ issue, but a ‘must-be-done’. This must be done because if it is not, this country is going to go to the dogs,” he said.