Former Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi has disclosed that President William Ruto, while serving as the country’s second in command, sought his intervention when his relationship with the then president, Uhuru Kenyatta, started going south.

Speaking on Friday, April 4, 2025, during an interview with a local radio station, Muturi revealed that Ruto would always reach out to him to inquire about what was happening with his then boss.

The former attorney general went ahead to disclose that when Ruto and Uhuru’s relationship kept getting so strained, he was forced in January 2020 to personally seek the intervention of the religious sector. Muturi says he held a meeting with Cardinal John Njue and pleaded with him to call other senior clergy of his stature so that they could sit down with Uhuru and Ruto to broker a truce.

“Let me say this, and William Ruto knows, when his relationship with Uhuru began going south, he would call me and ask, “What is happening? What happened to my friend?”. In fact, let me disclose this to the nation: In January 2020, because their relationship was getting so strained, I sought the intervention of the religious sector, and I had a breakfast meeting with Cardinal John Njue and pleaded with him to call other senior clergy of his stature and go and sit these two people down,” Muturi said.

Muturi on Ruto-Gachagua fallout

Muturi further revealed that he also tried to broker a truce between Ruto and his former deputy, Rigathi Gachagua.

He says he had approached Ruto in April 2024 and told him that his strained relationship with Gachagua would affect how the Cabinet operated.

“Even with regard to him (William Ruto) and his former deputy, around the month of April of last year, I actually had tea with him. Now that he is the one who started this thing by saying the things he said at Iftar and Sagana Lodge, I think I am at liberty to say. I approached him and told him that I saw there was something that was happening between him and his deputy. What is wrong? What is the problem? Because I think it is affecting the way we will operate as a cabinet,” he said.

Ruto on Muturi

Muturi’s sentiments come days after he was laid off as a CS, with Ruto claiming that he was fairly incompetent when he served as the attorney general.

“I had a problem with the AG who was there before—he was fairly incompetent. But now, I have a very competent lady in the position, and I can assure you that the issues of Wakf will be sorted out within months,” Ruto said while hosting an Iftar dinner at State House on Tuesday, March 25, 2025.

However, he now argues that the incompetence remarks against him are meant to divert his attention from pursuing the cases of abductions and extrajudicial killings.