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President William Ruto has announced a new theme for this year’s Jamhuri day on December 12.

Ruto noted that the upcoming holiday will be themed “Innovation Jamhuri Day” and will be graced by tech gurus from across the world to reflect the theme.

While speaking at the official opening of the 2022 Kenya Innovation Week, at Sarit Expo Centre in Nairobi, the Head of State said this will offer a platform for Kenyans to brainstorm with technology leaders from Facebook and from Google for partnerships.

“I deliberately decided that this year’s Jamhuri Day is going to be profiled properly and themed as the innovation Jamhuri Day,” he said.

Adding;

“I have instead of inviting the usual people we invite, I have decided to invite our technology leaders worldwide from Facebook and from Google so that we can share opportunities as the world is slowly becoming digital.”

At the same time, Ruto noted that his government is in the process of providing internet across all shopping centres in the country.

“We want to make sure every shopping centre will be on the internet and will have a hotspot. We also want to lay our fibre network on the Kenya Power transmission lines so that 8.5 million homes that are connected to electricity are equally connected to the internet,” Ruto said.

Azimio’s parallel Jamhuri celebrations

Meanwhile, Azimio leader Raila Odinga announced they will hold parallel Jamhuri Day celebrations on December 12, 2022, to protest what its leadership terms a violation of the Constitution by the Kenya Kwanza administration.

Addressing a press conference in Nairobi on Monday, December 5, Azimio leaders led by Raila Odinga and Martha Karua said the “public consultations with patriots” will be held at Jacaranda Gardens in Nairobi.

Raila said the rally will be peaceful and called on President William Ruto’s administration not to interfere with the meeting.

“On the 12th of December, we are going to Jacaranda Gardens in Embakasi, not Kamukunji. We will be celebrating Jamhuri Day with Kenyan patriots and it is also going to be a very peaceful congregation. No protests, no picketing, although that is also guaranteed by the constitution of Kenya,” Raila said.

“If we wanted to do a demonstration or protest, we would just inform the police to provide security and do it, but we are not demonstrating or engaging in any act of thuggery and hooliganism and no property is going to be destroyed. The government should not use this as an excuse to bring thugs there to try to disrupt this function.”