The ODM party, through Secretary General Edwin Sifuna has issued a terse response to allegations its leader, Raila Odinga, reached out to Deputy President William Ruto after the 2017 election.
ODM spills the beans on secret talks between Raila, Ruto
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The orange party did not dispute contact with Ruto but said the secret talks were initiated by Ruto through Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi and an unnamed former powerful Cabinet Minister.
Odinga’s party further added that the DP wanted Odinga to work with him instead of President Uhuru Kenyatta because Ruto felt he was more in charge of the country that his boss.
“Ruto and his supporters see the President as a man who is not in charge, and that they can do a better job than him. Ruto’s message via Sudi was that he was the one in charge of the country and he wanted Mr. Odinga to work with him,” ODM’s statement read in part.
Uhuru's NIS Reports
In the escalating war of words between the two camps, Sifuna said the DP went ahead to request for Odinga’s help to fight the President, despite such the former Prime Minister’s refusal to engage.
“Rt Hon Odinga asked his staff member to stop further contact with Oscar Sudi on learning what Ruto was up to. But Ruto would not relent. He soon sent a female former powerful Cabinet Minister from the Rift Valley to Rt Hon Odinga’s home, with the same proposal to help tame "Uhuru and his people". The said former Cabinet minister was to attempt this mission on at least 4 occasions,” the Orange party said.
Sifuna insinuated the President was aware of the talks through intelligence reports.
“The President has round the clock access to intelligence briefings, and would have known if any of the purported approaches had happened.”
“The history of Rt. Hon Raila Odinga and William Ruto, since the grand coalition government days, is well known, and even if Ruto was the last human being left standing in this land, the Rt. Hon Odinga would much rather make a deal with the birds and trees, but not a character like William Ruto,” Sifuna said on behalf of ODM.
On Wednesday, Ruto’s spokesman David Mugonyi dismissed ODM’s statement, accusing the party of stooping too low.
“We do not consider the post by Edwin Sifuna to be ODM official communication. The incoherent, rabid juvenile rant by Sifuna is so ridiculously uneducated, spectacularly unhinged, desperately delusional that out of compassion, it must be forgiven and ignored,” the DP’s office said.