On Monday, last week Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto was stopped from flying to Uganda, the second time in a month, by the immigration officers at the airport.
Ruto was accompanied by his team of Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, Kiharu’s Ndindi Nyoro, Kinango’s Benjamin Tayari, and businessmen David Lagat, Harun Aydin, David Muge, Simon Mogun and Nelson Kisalit who were allowed to proceed but Ruto broked.
According to sources, it’s alleged that Ruto who is in preparations for State House bid in the 2022 General Election in Kenya wants to hire chief political advisers in Uganda who would assist him politically.
The DP was to hold talks with President Museveni as his associates held separate discussions with officials of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), they disclosed.
While talking to the Nation early this week, a media company, Mr Sudi said their aim was “to borrow political lessons from the NRM”, which has ruled Uganda for more than 35 years.
However, the state minister of foreign affairs in Uganda Mr. Okello Oryem denied the allegations saying that Uganda can’t interfere with Kenyan affairs.
“Our foreign policy is very clear that we don’t interfere in the internal affairs of any country what so ever. We have no authority; we have no power over Kenyan government. They have their own reasons why the prevented HE Ruto from coming to Uganda and that should be channeled to the Kenyan High Commission,” Mr Okello Oryem, the State Minister for Foreign Affairs told jouranlists at Uganda Media centre on Wednesday.
His office, however, insists the DP’s was a planned private visit, for which he did not require any clearance.
But on matters protocol, Mr Oryem says there were no plans to receive the DP. The minister, however, did not clarify whether this was because Dr Ruto was planning a private visit or because they were not informed about the trip at all.
“I was not informed by the chief of protocol being requested by the Kenyan High Commission in Uganda to provide protocol services to the deputy President,” he said.
Uganda’s statement comes after the Raila Odinga-led ODM party, which described the DP’s troubles as a “sympathy-seeking circus”, questioned the Dr Ruto’s links to Mr Museveni and his party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM).
ODM questioned DP Ruto’s plan to borrow lessons from National Resistance Movement (NRM), including using its top strategists in the 2022 election in a statement the party released.
According to ODM, Dr Ruto is wrong to want to follow in the footsteps of a party with a bad record on democracy, protection of civil society places, good governance, freedom of the press and human rights abuses among others.
“While we do not wish to interfere with internal political arrangements in other countries, we equally want to state that we do not need to borrow from other countries political habits whose end result can only lead to chaos and backwardness of our country,” ODM said in a statement read by National Assembly minority whip Junet Mohamed.
It should be noted that Ruto’s aborted trip was the second in a period of one month to Uganda.