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The Kenya Kwanza Alliance and the Orange Democratic Movement have not entered into a coalition agreement but have agreed to unite the country and serve Kenyans, President William Ruto has said.

The President said the two political formations have agreed to join forces to help confront the challenges facing Kenyans.

He said the arrangement is not guided by selfish, personal or political party interests but by the well-being of the people of Kenya.

“There comes a time when the most important thing is not what benefits leaders or political parties, but what benefits the people,” he said.

Speaking in Nyamira and Kisii counties on his first day of a three-day inspection of development projects, he noted that his most important job is to unite the country.

He was accompanied by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, Governors Simba Arati (Kisii) and Amos Nyaribo (Nyamira), Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba, MPs and MCAs.

Development agenda

The President commended ODM for agreeing to work with the government for the sake of driving the country’s development agenda to the next level. He urged the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary to work in harmony for the interest and benefit of Kenya. 

Meanwhile, sharp political differences among elected MPs dominated the president’s meetings, mainly over the location of proposed projects in the two counties.

The most contentious issue which repeatedly disrupted the president’s  speech was the location of the proposed Nyamira county university with four local MPs clashing openly.

At Kiabonyoru High School in North Mugirango constituency in Nyamira county where president Ruto  started his tour, tempers flared up when the area MP Joash Nyamoko dismissed his colleagues Clive Gisairo (Kitutu Masaba) and Steve Mogaka (West Mugirango), openly accusing them of undermining and sabotaging the move to have the university constructed at Kiabonyouru.

Members of the public also demanded that the president declares Kiabonyoru as the site for the project before addressing them.

Efforts to by the president to convince them that leaders from the county will sit together and decide the site fell on deaf ears as the residents maintained that a feasibility study had been done by the Commission of Higher Education and settled on Kiabonyoru as the ideal location.

Addressing the gathering, Nyamoko said that Kiabonyoru deserved to host the university because due process had been followed contrary to what his colleagues were peddling.

“Mr President, remember I am the only person who was elected through the UDA ticket after being fought by my colleagues who now want the site of the university relocated to their home constituencies. The only reward you can give my people and the people of Nyamira county is to declare today that the site of the university be at Kiabonyoru where you are standing,” Nyamoko told Ruto to his face.