Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja has opened up on the role he played in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 2013 presidential bid, noting that he was instrumental in convincing the Head of State to team up with his Deputy William Ruto.
Speaking on Sunday during an interview with Churchill, Sakaja noted that the numbers required them to have at least 60% support from the Rift Valley region. This meant that they had to team up with Ruto who is the political kingpin of the area.
According to Sakaja, the initial plan was to have Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa as Uhuru’s running-mate, but that was changed since the numbers did not favour that combination.
“We wanted to win… I took all these MPs and we went to Naivasha…I was doing a presentation on numbers, I told them for us to win we’ll need at least 60% of Rift Valley, they laughed. It was unthinkable how do we work with Ruto at that time?
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“That evening President Uhuru, now then he was DPM, called me to his room and told me, ebu nionyeshe kitu tena tena, and we went through it…At that time, Eugene was supposed to be the running-mate but that changed…I told him you need William, good enough they had a personal relationship. They were sincere about creating peace in this country,” he said.
According to Sakaja, from then onwards, talks began and the team came in to shape leading to the coalition between TNA and URP party that gave birth to Jubilee.
