Raila’s nationwide protests looming large
Kenyans are waiting with bated breath to see whether Azimio la Umoja leader Mr Raila Odinga will make go his threats to lead a nationwide mass action beginning on Thursday.
Last month, Mr Odinga gave President William Ruto a 14-day ultimatum to address the rising cost of living, electoral injustice and skewed sharing of state jobs, failure to which he would mobilise his supports to go to the streets.
Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Odinga reminded President Ruto that he has until Wednesday midnight to respond to their grievances, which were issued at Jeevanjee gardens in Nairobi.
“We want you to wait for the time, the deadline is tomorrow (Wednesday) at midnight. So you will hear from us on Thursday,” Mr Odinga said.
The Azimio leader has been holding a series of political rallies across the country, to pile pressure on President Ruto to meet their demands.
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While issuing the ultimatum on February 22, Mr Odinga also asked President Ruto to stop the ongoing recruitment of the IEBC commissioners.
But the President Ruto has dismissed these demands and rubbished the ultimatum.
Speaking during the launch of Fertiplant Nakuru, the president dismissed Mr Odinga’s demand to open have the IEBC servers opened, saying it was not a constitutional requirement.
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“I want to tell Raila Odinga, please stop bothering me about servers. Where does the constitution state that servers must be opened? If the constitution talks about me opening the servers, I will obey the law. The only topic I will discuss is about opening the economy,” President Ruto said.
The head of state also accused the opposition leader of attempting to blackmail his government to derail his development agenda. President Ruto further accused Mr Odinga and retired president Uhuru Kenyatta of weakening the economy after a political handshake in 2018.
“Let them engage in mass action until they are tired. You will not threaten anybody in this government. You left us with a huge debt,” the president said.
Mr Odinga has refused to concede defeat since the Supreme Court ruling on the August 9 election that saw President Ruto declared the winner.