Deputy President William Ruto has been banned from using the Jubilee headquarters in Pangani, Nairobi for planning his 2022 presidential campaign.
The decision was reached by the Jubilee Party’s National Management Committee (NMC) on Friday, October 2, a day after the DP stormed the building with more than 30 MPs allied to him.
Further, the NMC said that it has recommended the removal of Ruto as Jubilee deputy party leader to the National Executive Council, accusing the DP of alleged power grab in the absence of the party leader, President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The announcement was made by Jubilee Secretary-General, Raphael Tuju, on the steps of the party’s Pangani offices in a press briefing.
This after Ruto camped at the Jubilee headquarters on Thursday where he held a closed-door meeting with his allies and a section of ward representatives, a move seen as an unofficial takeover of the ruling party.
On Friday, Tuju also accused Ruto of disregarding Jubilee positions on political issues after he joked about being willing to back an independent candidate in the Msambweni by-election in which the party had already declared it would front a candidate.
The party boss said that Ruto had stormed the Pangani building with a potential candidate in tow, Sharlete Miriam Akinyi, in a bid to intimidate officials into changing Jubilee position in the matter.
But last night, Ruto sought to play down his visit to the Pangani offices, tweeting:
His meeting with the MPs on Thursday ended at 2:30 pm when the lawmakers stepped outside for a media briefing and denied claims of an attempted power grab.
“In front of you are members of the Jubilee Party. We were having a small consultative meeting about the party. We did not have a structured meeting that could have paved the way for a press briefing, but because we have heard and seen on social media that we came here to stage a coup, we find it appropriate to talk about it,” Meru Senator Mithika Linturi said.
However, Kimilili MP Didmus Baraza brazenly said they had taken over the party from the ODM surrogates.
