President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday, November 15 held a meeting at Sagana State Lodge with leaders from the Mt Kenya region to discuss matters that affected the community.
In the meeting that kicked off at around noon, the president sought to unite the region's leaders after recent public spats among themselves.
A Nyeri youth leader who spoke to Kenyans.co.ke on the phone, top of the agenda, the head of state spoke about the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) where the president is said to have drummed up support for the same.
Despite selling the BBI as the fruit of the handshake between he and ODM leader Raila Odinga, he stated that he would release the report and its fate would lie in the hands of Kenyans after reading it.
He urged that support or opposition for the highly anticipated BBI report should be done honourably.
The president further told the leaders that BBI was not a matter of life and death and thus they shouldn't crucify him for it, reminding them that it took peace for development to happen.
Kenyatta told the leaders to shun succession politics and embrace development matters instead doubting whether he was still firmly a member of the Jubilee Party.
"Election time will come. But have you ever heard me say that I have left my party and gone to another one? Have you ever heard me say that you should select this one and not this one? Why do some people think that they should remind me every morning? Who has asked you?" he wondered.
President Kenyatta assured that he was not offering ODM leader Raila Odinga any position in government but they were united for the sake of peace.
"And when I talk to Raila, I never tell him that we are talking so that he can get a big position. I tell him that we are talking because of the peace of this country," the head of state vented.
“Let me work in peace, I know what I am doing, let us work for the people who elected us, the handshake is about bringing peace,” he added.
He laughed off those who were arguing about the BBI report, claiming that he had not even gone through it to know its content.
"I am only seeing people talking about BBI. I have not seen it but I hear it has supporters and opposers," he continued.
He went ahead to question the motive of some of the leaders who were constantly criticising him.
"Why do you want to bury me alive? I will remind you of the journey we have taken together. In 2007, the country almost went up in flames but we have come this far," he stated.
He further urged the leaders to focus on the miraa, pyrethrum, coffee, tea, cotton and milk sectors which were the backbone of the region's economy in order to help their electorate.
"We have discussed miraa, pyrethrum, coffee, tea, cotton, milk, and those are the major problems of this region. When shall we ever help our people? They only thing we talk about is 2022 and abuse each other.," the president advised.
