President William Ruto on Sunday, November 20, recalled a viral video during the electioneering period where he was captured running to his chopper to catch a flight to Kiambu County.
Speaking during a church service at Faith Evangelistic Ministry (FEM) Family Church, Karen, Nairobi County, Ruto affirmed that he was in a race against time to beat the 6.00 pm deadline slated for the final day of campaigns.
He noted that the Kenya Kwanza coalition had received a tip-off that they were allegedly not going to win the Kiambu seat- touted as one of Mt Kenya’s vote-rich regions.
The president added that despite his packed itinerary- as he had toured Narok, Mai Mahiu and Nyayo stadium- he rushed to Kiambu to sway a few voters to align with the Kenya Kwanza coalition.
“I was reminded of the last day of the campaign period. We had a rally in Narok, Mai Mahiu and Nyayo Stadium. Then we had a problem in Kiambu. It was 5.30 pm the campaigns were to close at 6 pm. We had to go to Kiambu because we had a problem. All indications showed (opinion polls) that we were not going to win the Kiambu seat.
“We were debating if we should go since it was thirty minutes. Finally, we decided to go. I was even caught on camera running to the plane because there was no time,” he noted.
According to Ruto, by the time they arrived in Kirigiti stadium, they had only 18 minutes to plead their cases to the Kiambu residents.
Upon making a few short speeches, Ruto acknowledged turning to prayer as his source of hope.
“We had 18 minutes to finish the rally in Kirigiti. So, as the minutes moved and there was no time, I realised we were not going to win unless we do something extraordinary,” he noted.
“After making a short statement and persuading people, I decided to pray. You know what, we won the seat,” he added.
During the church service, Ruto made two requests to Kenyans in order to fulfill his campaign pledges; raising the country’s revenue collection from the current 14 percent to 25 percent and aiding in changing the environment.
“I have two things to tell you now as the President of Kenya, I need (your) help. You know our situation of debt, you see in the middle-income category, normally other countries raise 20 or 25 percent of their GDP in terms of revenue but for us, it’s 14 percent.
“I want you to pray for our nation so that we can move our revenue from 14 percent to 25 percent (from Ksh2.1 trillion to between Ksh4 and Ksh5 trillion. The second thing is that I need help with changing the environment,” the head of state pointed out.
Later on Sunday evening, Ruto is slated to fly out of the country to head to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and then fly out to Turkey on Monday, November 21.
Source: kENYANS.CO.KE