Kipruto Kirwa: Ruto has made Moi look like an angel
By David Nthua, August 29, 2025Former United Democratic Alliance Vice Chairperson Kipruto Arap Kirwa has said President William Ruto has made former President Daniel Moi look like an angel.
Speaking to a local radio station on Friday, August 29, 2025, Kirwa subtly defended the late Moi, arguing that despite the detentions without trial that characterised his long rule, his actions were at least done within the framework of the old constitution.
In comparison, he accused Ruto of going against both morality and the law.
According to Kirwa, Ruto’s conduct has betrayed the very values he claims to uphold as a Christian leader.
“Ruto proposed that he was going to be the president for Christians. Ruto calls himself a Christian, but what he does is otherwise.
“When people are dying in the hospitals, you know there are fake hospitals and tell us that this SHA is going to succeed, that is immoral and also goes against the tenets of a Christian,” Kirwa said.
He added that Kenyans must stop reducing politics to tribal loyalty or religious identity, urging for what he termed a “social re-engineering” of society.
“We need to do social re-engineering of our society so that we stop saying we vote for someone because he is in our society.
“If you go to Kalenjin, where I come from, they want to vilify other regimes just because they weren’t from their community,” he explained.
Moi as a contrast to Ruto
Kirwa, himself a seasoned politician from the Rift Valley, said the late President Moi, despite being criticised for authoritarian tendencies, governed within the law.
“For me, even President Daniel Moi, under the old constitution, is an angel, in terms of the way he governed this country. Even detention without trial was within the constitution.
“The current fellow is doing things that aren’t in the constitution, they are immoral, illegal, but he wants us to claim that he is one of us (Kalenjin), hence we vote for him,” Kirwa remarked.
His comments come at a time when President Ruto faces mounting criticism over the Social Health Authority (SHA) amid revelations of fraudulent claims and ghost hospitals.
Opposition figures and governance experts have also questioned his leadership style, likening it to authoritarian control.
Kirwa’s remarks are expected to further fuel debate in the Rift Valley, a region still seen as Ruto’s political bedrock.