Shock as State House shuts gate on Ruto – Weekly Citizen

The die has been cast for William Ruto after State House for the second time in a month pulled down from the website photographs taken during a cabinet meeting where he was present with Uhuru Kenyatta.
To complicate matters for the second in command, the government has ordered him to scale down his security team while visiting State House or attending any official function graced by the president. To visit State House unlike before, Ruto has to book an appointment.

Uhuru and Rala Odinga

Contrary to expectations though, there is talk in Ruto circles that this isolation is a blessing in disguise for him as he is now delinked from Uhuru presidency mass failures that he feels would have worked against him in his 2022 presidential race was he still seen next to Uhuru whom Kenyans are increasingly blaming for their woes. Indeed, there are those of the view that it is Raila Odinga’s presidential bid that will suffer instead as he is now replacing Ruto next to Uhuru.
We have further been told that the presidency has stopped assigning Ruto foreign trips to represent the president and that is why during the recent simmering diplomatic feud between Kenya and Somalia that saw Somali Defense Forces exchange fire at Mandera border town spilling into Kenya, State House dispatched a team led by super minister Fred Matiang’i and not Ruto.

ÇS Matiang’i and President of Somalia

Sources say that months back, Ruto requested for a military chopper to fly him to Sudan for a private visit. When State House was informed, it declined forcing Ruto to fly to Sudan where he met a tycoon close to disposed president Omar El Bashir. Ruto flew to Sudan from Wilson Airport using a private jet.
Further, Ruto although member of National Security Council, his input is of late minimal. The council holds its meetings at State House and going by its current composition, majority of the members have no respect for Ruto.
Uhuru is the chair and has declared openly he will not back Ruto’s presidency 2022. Defense cabinet secretary Monica Juma is a member together with Rachael Omamo (Foreign Affairs), Matiangi (Internal Security), Attorney General Paul Kariuki Kihara, Chief-of-General Staff Samson Mwathethe, Director General National Intelligence service Philip Kameru and Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai. Going by the council composition with word powerful PS Internal Security Karanja Kibicho plays a key role, then Ruto is a lone ranger in the council.
In fact the council in liaison with cabinet committee Matiang’i chairs has been instrumental in laying strategies to combat corona virus crisis including the curfew that was declared by Uhuru at State House with Ruto missing in action.
The move to isolate Ruto from State House and block him started when powerful forces surrounding Uhuru lobbied and managed to have Matiang’i chair weekly cabinet meetings. Since the outbreak of covid-19, the meetings are now held twice per week, Weekly Citizen has information that many expected Uhuru to delegate the duties to his deputy.
The meetings are held to assess the implementation of all government agendas.
Weekly Citizen has information that Ruto was sidelined after Uhuru was briefed that his deputy was roaming around the country officiating and launching development projects not budgeted for. Those in the know however say those around Uhuru were fearing that Ruto’s workaholic nature was making Uhuru look lazy and so he had to be slowed.
Further, Ruto is being sidelined after reports that foreign investors eyeing lucrative state tenders were being forced to part with millions of shillings in kickbacks by his allies led by Farouk Kibet and his fundraiser David Muge.
To complicate matters for Ruto, all the staff at presidency seen to be allied to him and were spying on his behalf at State House have been moved. The last staff to be shown the doors was when with orders from state house, Public Service Commission scrapped five positions within the Presidential Strategic Communications Unit and terminated the contracts of those who were holding the posts.
The positions scrapped include that of the senior director, communications (events and branding), senior director, communications (digital, innovation, and diaspora communication), senior director, communications (speech writing), director), and the principal information officer (head of digital strategies).
Among those sent home on State House instructions included Dennis Itumbi, director of digital communications,
Eric Ng’eno who was director of messaging, James Mureithi and David Musau, based directorate of communications (events and branding) in the presidency, and John Ndolo (principal information officer – head of digital strategies)
In a letter copied to the PS in the ministry of Public Service, PSC CEO Simon Rotich that was drafted in consultation with State House, the positions had been abolished as part of efforts to reorganise the government.
It is imperative to note that after being removed from the office on the house on the hill, the sacked officers operated under Ruto office, ran DP errands but paid by the state.
The contracts of the five according to the letter, were terminated in accordance with termination clauses to facilitate the payment of gratuities on a pro rata basis.
Sources say that the five officers were instructed to hand government properties they held among them official badges within two hours.
Itumbi is a marked man by state security machineries and after being linked to a letter linking a section of the cabinet plotting assassinate Ruto.
Back to Ruto woes, the first instant the new PSCU pulled down the photos showing Ruto at State House was on March 19 during the first cabinet meeting following the outbreak of the deadly corona virus pandemic.
The photos that had been uploaded on State House’s social media pages showed those in attendance included Uhuru, Ruto and cabinet secretaries. But minutes later the photos were pulled down from both the Facebook page and Twitter handle after they were uploaded even though the DP supporters could not hide their joy in seeing him present at the meeting.
Last week, other photos showing Ruto at State House when the president met some cabinet secretaries to discuss the corona virus epidemic were pulled down minutes after being posted on Facebook and Twitter.
The deputy president now finds himself an isolated figure who only goes to State House in functions where constitutionally, he is required to attend as the number two.
Curiously, even at such events, he normally sits alone as cabinet secretaries and other senior government officials fear interacting with him for fear of losing their jobs.
State House officials also call him at the last minute to invite him to attend such functions and he is always kept for hours waiting at the holding area while other leaders such as opposition leader Raila Odinga are ushered in minutes on arrival.
To show how fortunes have changed, Ruto was conspicuously missing when the president broke the news of the outbreak of the corona virus epidemic three Sundays ago though the DP was in Nairobi. The DP was attending a church function at Friends Church Langata where he donated Sh1 million.
The president made the announcement at the corridors of Harambee House flanked by Matiang’i and his Health counterpart Mutahi Kagwe.
During the national prayers day hosted by the president at State House, Ruto cut the figure of a forlorn character.
Curiously, the master of ceremony, Bishop Martin Kivuva of the Mombasa Catholic Church invited the president to address the nation after the prayer thereby breaching protocol. He was under State House instruction not to invite Ruto welcome the president. The function was organised by the presidency in which Ruto office falls under.
It is imperative also to note that the presidency has cut Ruto office budget to an extent that officers working under the DP are openly complaining.
Traditionally, it is the role of the deputy president to invite the head of state to address the nation and hence Bishop Kivuva should have handed the microphone to Ruto.
The deputy president lost the trust of his boss when he accused the government which he serves as number two of hatching an elaborate scheme to finish him off.
In unprecedented gush of the pent-up anger, Ruto claimed the murder of Sergeant Kipyegon Kenei, a security officer in his office, was a double ploy to set him up against his community while also scandalising his office.
Speaking at Kenei’s funeral, Ruto accused the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headed by George Kinoti of being part of an elaborate scheme to demean his office.
He also accused unnamed government officials (Matiang’i and Kibicho) of boasting that he would not be around for long.
At Kenei’s funeral, the statements by the country’s number two attracted pin-drop silence from mourners and got the whole country talking, thereby setting him on a collision course with his boss.
“The plotters of these schemes, I want to let you know that unless you kill me, I am not turning back. Kenya is for everyone. Kenya is not for a few people. Threats, plots… all these things… I even know what they have planned but I am ready for it,” the DP told mourners comprising majority the members of his Kalenjin community.
The DP, sources added, irked the president further when he claimed Kenei was felled to frighten him and the murder was the latest in a well-orchestrated scheme to fight him. What Ruto failed to understand was the fact that the Sh39 billion arms scam had tainted Uhuru’s presidency in the eyes of the international community, scaring investors.
“They may have the system, and since the system cannot elect anybody, they can only kill but I want to tell them we have God. Those in this scheme are boasting that I will not be there soon and they are still walking around,” Ruto wrote on his Twitter handle as soon as he left the burial.
Since the beginning of Jubilee’s second term, the DP has often been at loggerheads with a section of the ruling party who believe he jumped the gun by declaring his intentions of vying for the top seat with an entire term to serve.
Ruto’s fanatical support in the president’s backyard of Central has also not gone down well with individuals thought to be close to the president and who believe the DP is usurping power from the president, who also doubles up as Jubilee leader.
These perceptions led to a split within Jubilee, with Ruto sympathizers believing State House senior figures were using state machinery to frustrate and undermine their man at every turn.
But Ruto, not to be cowed openly castigated the system and even went further to link it with Kenei’s death.
The president however was much annoyed on seeing his principal assistant hurl attacks on a system he is an insider in, whose National Security Council he chairs in the absence of the president.

Kibicho

The system, insider added, is now out to make it harder for Ruto to mobilize for his 2022 presidential run and even finding a viable running mate will be hard because it would be a dead-end race.
The deputy president, insider further added, was early in the Jubilee second term urged by the system to stop early presidential campaigns to ostensibly allow the government concentrate on the president’s legacy projects but he defied. The legacy is now as good as buried as circumstances conspire against Uhuru who is now likely to leave power the worst performing president so far with nothing to write about.
The move which caught the government security bosses unawares was a bid by an increasingly unsettled Ruto to avoid being trailed by Matiang’i, who by virtue of his position overseas the GSU from where guards are drawn from the Recce Company.
The deputy president is also reportedly rarely using his Harambee House Annex office (now a designated crime scene) out of the morbid fear that it is bugged by state intelligence.
The DP, whose political clout had increased significantly after declaring his interest to vie for presidency, has now developed paranoia surrounding his personal security and no longer trusts government officials appointed to work around him.
Ruto’s troubles with Matiang’i started two years back when the Interior ministry blamed him for failing to furnish it with the itinerary of his tours across the country which they blamed for the absence of senior security officers in some of his functions.
Kibicho further dismissed allegations that the government had withdrawn security from a church function attended by Ruto as false.
Ruto now finds himself sailing in the same waters Raila sailed in after the 2013 elections.
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Kibicho