DP Gachagua: Ruto promoted protocol officer who removed his seat from Uhuru's high table
By Kevin Cheruiyot
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua used the occasion of the National Prayer Breakfast to praise President William Ruto for extending an olive branch to people he claims mistreated him in the last administration.
The DP said the theme of this year's National Prayer Breakfast, Reconciliation, was timely as the Kenya Kwanza government seeks to work with some of the people who opposed it in the last election.
He said this was evident in the recent appointments and promotions to government positions.
He claimed that a protocol officer removed Dr Ruto’s seat from the high table used by former President Uhuru Kenyatta at last year’s event also held at Safari Park.
"The last prayer breakfast here was a very toxic affair, full of tension and hatred. The President, who was his deputy today, did not want to sit at the same table with his boss...and when we were trying to rally people around the President, many people around us, we were persuaded that the lady who removed the chair where Dr William Ruto was supposed to sit should be shown the door... but when the President came to know, he said no, we have to reconcile with reality. That is behind us, the lady who is in the protocol should stay there and be promoted," the DP said.
He said the same employee is currently working around the president despite humiliating him in the last regime where the president's seat was far from the table that Mr Kenyatta shared with Chief Justice Martha Koome and former Attorney General Paul Kihara.
On the other hand, Dr Ruto shared the table with former National Assembly Speakers Justin Muturi and Ken Lusaka, the current Bungoma County Governor.
The DP added that some government officials who were behind the removal of Dr Ruto's belongings from his official residence in Mombasa should have been removed from the government but President Ruto intervened and saved their jobs.
Mr Gachagua urged the leaders of the Azimio La Umoja One Coalition Kenya to also come to terms with the reality that the election is over and Dr Ruto “was the President of Kenya”.
"The new government is the one that is convinced that we need to reconcile the country and so we want to plead and persuade all the leaders to reconcile with the truth and the reality. So, as we reconcile with God and with people, let us begin to reconcile with the truth.”
The Azimio leaders skipped the event despite being invited, claiming in the letter that the Kenya Kwanza would use the occasion to settle their political scores.
