Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna has dismissed President William Ruto’s repeated assertions that former President Uhuru Kenyatta is bankrolling opposition movements, challenging the president to provide concrete evidence to back his allegations.
In a statement posted on Facebook on Sunday, August 23, Sifuna ridiculed Ruto for failing to substantiate his claims when pressed during a recent newspaper interview.
The senator’s remarks came after Ruto was asked directly to provide proof supporting his narrative that Uhuru is funding political figures positioning themselves against the government ahead of the 2027 general election.
Senator Edwin Sifuna and President William Ruto: Courtesy.
According to Sifuna, the president could only cite media reports as his source of information, offering no tangible evidence to support his accusations.
The senator took a swipe at Ruto, questioning how a leader who claims to possess superior intellectual capacity could rely on unverified newspaper articles to make serious allegations against a former head of state.
Sifuna’s comments have added to weeks of escalating political tensions between the two camps, following Ruto’s recent address in Eldoret on Thursday, August 13, where he openly accused Uhuru of sponsoring candidates seeking to challenge his re-election.
The president claimed that his predecessor was motivated by envy over achievements in key sectors, including the Affordable Housing programme, Universal Health Coverage, and education funding, which Ruto alleged Uhuru had failed to deliver on during his decade in office.
Ruto had maintained that Uhuru’s inability to implement these programmes during his own tenure had driven him to fund protégés to compete against the current administration.
The president further dismissed calls from some political quarters for him to serve only one term, labeling such demands as rooted in tribalism, while asserting that his government had distributed development equitably across all regions, unlike previous administrations.
Sifuna, who leads the Linda Mwananchi movement, a breakaway faction from the Orange Democratic Movement, has consistently dismissed Ruto’s sponsorship claims as an attempt to delegitimize the movement’s grassroots opposition to the government.
The senator has framed the president’s remarks as evidence of a broader failure to engage with evidence-based scrutiny, choosing instead to deflect criticism through unsubstantiated allegations.
Linda Mwananchi has positioned itself as a key challenger to Ruto’s re-election bid in 2027, with Sifuna at the forefront of the movement’s efforts to build a coalition of opposition forces.
