As The Year Come To An End, I’m Upbeat For Having Accomplished My Mission Of Championing The Agenda of Ruto

By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga  

Worth Noting:

• It goes. Addressing a rally at Jacaranda ground in Nairobi, Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Coalition leader Raila Odinga took the battle against President William Ruto a notch higher when he likened him to Zakayo, a tax collector.
• For those who have read The Bible, Zakayo was a short man who climbed on a tree when Jesus was passing by.
• This is the only option he had because Jesus was surrounded by a sea of humanity.
• While atop a tree, he called the name of Jesus. Jesus listened to him as he confessed his sins and pleaded for forgiveness. The son of God told him. I have forgiven you your sins.

Championing and highlightening the achievements of President William Ruto and his administration stood out as one of my New Year resolutions.

I believed that Kenyans had made the right choice and a time has come for the opposition leaders to swallow their pride, cede hardline stance and support the winner. Azimio leader Raila Odinga and his brigade would not heed the call. But I knew they were going nowhere.

I’m one of those who would play a key role of nipping in the bud their ill-advised plans/plots of trying to oust a democratically elected government of President Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua.

Raila’s plan ‘B’was to sabotage and derail duo’s plan to rollout a raft of development projects envisaged in bottom-up economic transformation.

The plan ‘C’ was to force his way to join the government through the back door.

This was with a view of taking half of the government ‘nusu mkate’.

For a whole year, I have kept the faith in terms of pushing the agenda of President Ruto.

I would not do this blindly. I would listen to what Kenyans are saying and undertake indepth research work.

I agree that we are yet to get out of the wood. However I have no reason to doubt President Ruto and his deputy’s Christmas messages that things will start to get in the New Year.

We took over when the economy was in bad shape.

This was attributed to a number of factors among them hefty foreign debts, droughts rated to be the worst in 40 years; Russian-Ukraine war and when the country was recovering from devastating effects of Covid-19 pandemic, the two leaders stated in separate statements.

On high cost of living,  I would explain the cause of this and the interventions Dr Ruto was putting in place to mitigate the situation.

As the year to come to an end, I’m upbeat that my efforts and those of other Kenyans have borne the fruits.

Here is one of the articles that I wrote during the heydays of Raila Odinga-led street demonstrations.

It goes. Addressing a rally at Jacaranda ground in Nairobi, Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Coalition leader Raila Odinga took the battle against President William Ruto a notch higher when he likened him to Zakayo, a tax collector.

For those who have read The Bible, Zakayo was a short man who climbed on a tree when Jesus was passing by.

This is the only option he had because Jesus was surrounded by a sea of humanity.

While atop a tree, he called the name of Jesus. Jesus listened to him as he confessed his sins and pleaded for forgiveness. The son of God told him. I have forgiven you your sins.

For Raila, Ruto is behaving like Zakayo, the tax collector. We know Zakayo later saw the light but Dr Ruto seems not ready to seek forgiveness.

I totally disagree with Raila. As a born again Christian, I want to say without fear of contradictions that his remarks were totally misleading and amounted to misinterpretation of the Bible.

There is no Verse that bars the government or any other institution and this include the Church from collecting money from citizens.

However, the funds must be used to improve the lives and provide services to the contributors.

In the Churches, we call it 10 per cent and tithe.

For Zakayo, the Bible says he was collecting the tax from Churches and Synagogue. This was against the wish of God because he had turned the House of Lord to be a business premise.

Besides, he could not account for the collections.

We know the Azimio leader spent billions of shillings during the campaigns and many believed the outgoing government of President Uhuru Kenyatta was bankrolling him.

How come we did not hear him call Kenyatta a tax collector?

We know that the government does not have money of its own.

It relies on the taxes, foreign grants and loans to provide services to the citizens.

So, if Raila won the election, what miracle could he have performed? None. He could have done the same thing of rallying Kenyans to pay their taxes.

Former President Mwai Kibaki is remembered for taking this country to great heights of prosperity and development.

When he ascended to power, he used to read same template.

He not only rewarded the tax-compliant Kenyans including those running big companies but he developed the slogan “Kulipa Ushuru, Nikujitegemea”.

Since President Ruto assumed the power, I have not heard his government being associated with any corruption scandal.

So, I would expect Kenyans to buy Raila’s political card that the taxes collected were being stolen and deviated.

This is my unsolicited advise to Raila. He should accept that Ruto won the presidential elections and move on.

The more he continues to make unsubstantiated claims against President Ruto, the more Kenyans believe he is after ‘nusu Mkate’.

Dr Ruto has repeatedly stated that he will not succumb to his machinations.

Raila should stick to his role of the opposition. My government is not hiding anything and it is ready to be checked and corrected.

He should, however, engage us in a structured and constructive criticism.

Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi

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About the Author

Joseph Mutua Ndonga

Joseph Mutua Ndonga is a Writer and Political Analyst based in Nairobi

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