Azimio Executive Director Raphael Tuju has insisted that DP William Ruto was paid to support President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013.
According to him, that was not strange because Ruto had also made such demands to ODM previously. The amount of money which he demanded was collected by people who supported Uhuru with Tuju insisting that the Gema nation does not owe Ruto anything since he already received his payment which was in billions.
“Well for a man who says 7 billion only, your guess is good as mine but it was in the billions and that is nothing surprising. I mean we have a senior politician who asked right Hon Raila Odinga for 900 million before he could give him his support. It is almost in the public domain. That is the currency of some of these politicians and Ruto is one of them,” the CS without a portfolio said in an interview with Citizen TV.
Tuju said that Ruto wanted the money for various reasons including convincing his community to throw their weight behind Uhuru.
“Well they would clothe it in various ways like I need that money so that I can convince my community or I can convince my constituency but it was colossal amount of money it was like the upfront payment then the final payment is through grabbing certain ministries making sure the finance, Agriculture, Infrastructure if he didn’t have the minister he had the Permanent Secretary then he went on a looting spree,” Tuju revealed.
He however said that he decided to reveal that information now, just days to the general elections, so that Kenyans can know the truth [in order to make informed decisions] while denying that he was just out to ruin Ruto’s reputation. Tuju noted that the DP doesn’t have any reputation because of the series of scandals that he had been linked to including land grabbing.
“Is it beyond Ruto to do such kind of things given what he has done? ” Tuju posed, adding that he had evidence to prove his allegations. He also said that many people in their circle have the proof as well.
The former Rarieda MP also said that the handshake was a big relief to them because Ruto had been blackmailing Uhuru Kenyatta for a long time.
“He has always been blackmailing the president, he was controlling parliament through Duale, and of course the speakers were on his, am I lying? Those speakers are now in UDA,” he noted
Tuju further explained why Uhuru chose to work with his blackmailer yet he had an option of not doing so.
“President Uhuru Kenyatta was between a shark and a crocodile, on one side was Ruto and the other side was Raila Odinga they were going to eat him up so he had to choose whose bite was not so bad and if Ruto’s bite could make him survive, naturally if I was president Kenyatta I would compromise with a person like that but bitterly because you know he is not an honest person and that is why talking about Ruto leading this country is a disaster,” he said.
Tuju further said that the dark side of Ruto would have eventually come out even if he wouldn’t have fallen out with Uhuru after the handshake.
“I think you can tolerate up to a point. Given the kind of blackmail that he was putting us through, the president could no longer tolerate it and that is why everybody wonders why Uhuru reached out to Raila Odinga whom they have had bitter competitions with twice. It was better several times to work with an honest Raila who was ready to work with Uhuru without demanding anything,” he noted.
The Raphael Tuju interview. Explosive! pic.twitter.com/oTZnB3wlhO
— Robert ALAI (@RobertAlai) July 28, 2022
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