Duale slams leaders for playing politics with deadly Ebola strain, says protesters were paid
By Martin Oduor, June 4, 2026A visibly furious Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has completely blown his top over mounting public opposition to a sensitive US-backed Ebola facility, sensationally branding local demonstrators as hired goons.
Appearing on a TV interview on Wednesday night, June 3, 2026, a combative Duale let rip at both street protesters and local politicians, accusing them of risking national safety to play cheap partisan games.
The political storm centres on a highly secure Ebola quarantine unit being erected by the United States government inside the heavily fortified perimeter of the Laikipia Air Base.
The interview reached a boiling point when Duale was pressed on the angry demonstrations that erupted near the military installation in Laikipia.
Duale flatly dismissed the civil unrest, claiming that the locals marching against the health facility do not represent genuine public anxiety, but are instead operating as paid political actors.
“This is not about President Ruto. Those are paid protesters,” Duale fired back fiercely.
He then took direct aim at the local political leadership of Laikipia County, castigating them for failing to support a vital health defence mechanism while failing to grasp the terrifying biological reality on the horizon.
“The leadership of Laikipia must be very responsible because they do not know what we are dealing with,” Duale warned ominously.
Duale sought to inject a dose of grim reality into the conversation, pulling back the curtain on the sheer severity of the health threat Kenya is facing from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Unlike previous health scares, the Minister revealed that the medical community is currently flying blind against this particular mutation.
“This strain has no vaccine,” Duale disclosed, using the chilling fact to justify why the state requires an ultra-secure, military-grade quarantine zone far away from civilian medical centres.
The Health CS expressed deep frustration at what he characterised as blatant double standards by the public and the media, pointing out that regional Ebola threats are a recurring historical reality that have bypassed political outrage in the past.
“This is the 17th Ebola outbreak; it happened all the other successive governments,” an exasperated Duale argued.
“Why is the Ebola outbreak during the administration of President William Ruto make people go and demonstrate?”
To drive his point home, Duale invoked the ghost of the COVID-19 pandemic, recalling how the United Nations set up a highly specialised, restricted containment hub in the heart of the capital without a single whimper of public dissent.
“During Covid, the UN established such a facility in Nairobi Hospital and nobody made noise yet Covid killed more people than Ebola,” Duale pointed out.
By aggressively framing the Laikipia backlash as a manufactured political ploy rather than a legitimate safety concern, Duale has made it explicitly clear: the Ruto administration will not allow local politicians or street demonstrations to dictate its national bio-defence strategy.