Wiper Party Leader Kalonzo Musyoka has slammed President William Ruto for his obsession with achieving first-world status, terming it a lopsided objective

Speaking on Saturday, December 13, 2025, Kalonzo faulted Ruto for the silent, undervalued sale of national strategic assets such as East Africa Portland Cement and Safaricom.

Kalonzo lamented that Ruto has forgotten the flagship project of Vision 2030 initiated by the late President Mwai Kibaki.

“Ruto must be a one-term president. We cannot allow Safaricom to be sold like that. It is a strategic national institution of importance and critical to the future of the people and their next generation.

“He has forgotten that we established Vision 2030 to make Kenya a middle-income society where citizens enjoy a high quality of life. He has now forgotten about it and only talks of first-world status. Before you get to first-world status, you have to give young people employment,” he added.

Right to education

Kalonzo also tore into the government for denying Kenyans the basic right to education through policies he claimed are messing up the education sector.

“He has also messed up university education. Qualified Kenyans in excess of half a million cannot access education and get to university because they cannot pay the new fees,” he stated.

“Schools’ capitation is at an all-time low as we approach January. Education is a basic right, and we will not allow Ruto to mess it up,” he added.

Ichungw’ah on Ruto’s economic blueprint

His remarks come a day after National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah asserted that Kenyans were increasingly becoming hopeful of Ruto’s dream to transform the country more than ever before.

Speaking on Friday, December 12, 2025, ahead of the Jamhuri Day celebrations, Ichung’wah stated that the country remains firmly on course to achieve the president’s transformative economic agenda.

Ichung’wah particularly praised President Ruto’s broader blueprint to grow the economy through domestic savings and homegrown investments.

Achievable

“The Kenyan people are now seeing the journey from a developing (third-world) nation to a first-world country being achieved within our lifetime — just as President Ruto has always said. I am happy to note the positive engagement around infrastructure financing and how we can responsibly dispose of some underutilised assets to raise funds—such as shares in Safaricom — and channel those resources into critical projects in roads, agriculture, and support for regions that still depend heavily on relief and irrigation,” he said.