Gatundu South Member of Parliament Moses Kuria addressed the rift between President Uhuru Kenyatta and himself in a candid interview with Saturday Nation on January 18.
In the recent past, it has been evident to members of the public that the Gatundu legislator has been very critical of the head of state.
In the interview, Kuria narrated of events that set him and President Kenyatta on separate paths.
First, the Jubilee legislator alleged that the ruling party had been infiltrated by outsiders. Kuria stated that he did not understand why that had happened, but felt they shared different ambitions.\
"All of a sudden, the space was occupied by people from nowhere, who did not know why we wanted to win the election and what we wanted to do in government," Kuria stated.
"I was banished to Siberia and was jobless until I found myself in Parliament in August 2014, courtesy of a by-election following the demise of MP Joseph Ngugi," he added.
Kuria stated that the appointment of Jubilee officials who did not understand its agenda was the birth of the problems that face it today.
The controversial MP recounted 2017 as a year which he endured a lot. He stated that prior to the General Election, people he believed to be relatives of President Kenyatta financed a campaign against him.
"The year 2017 was difficult for me. First, forces I believe are from the president's closest relatives sponsored candidates against me in Gatundu South," Kuria claimed.
"This is despite the fact that I had worked very hard to deliver to my people, lifting the place from near-total darkness to electrification, initiating a roads upgrade programme and upgrading 75 per cent of secondary schools to have boarding facilities," he argued.
He alleged that the year's party nominations were even doctored to lock him out of vying for re-election.
"I'm not sure I have fully recovered from that treachery," Kuria stated.
Kuria referenced a speech he made in Thika on December 31, 2018, as a major contributing factor to the divide. He alleged that his decision to address the issues affecting people from the region made him infamous to many governors from Central Kenya.
They, in turn, painted him in bad light to President Uhuru Kenyatta.
In his speech, Kuria had pointed out the neglect of the region by both the county governments and the national government. According to him, siding with members of the public seemed to have rubbed some shoulders the wrong way.
He called for the allocation of money towards the establishment of processing factories to cater for the agricultural products from the region, rather than have them processed by foreign investor companies.
"When I persisted in asking these questions, the Mt Kenya governors convinced the president that I was a rabble-rouser inciting the people against him, at the behest of Deputy President William Ruto," Kuria stated.
"Rather than respond to the issues I was raising on the foreign-driven policies that were driving small traders to the point of committing suicide, the e-list cabal convinced the president I was the enemy and the problem," he explained.
He also attributed the fallout to the March 9, 2019 handshake between President Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga. Kuria alleged that a team that did not understand Jubilee's plan for the country again took over the government.
"The narrative was very simple. Rather than explain to us and discuss the rationale behind the handshake, this cartel brought in the narrative that some of us were beneficiaries of the divisive politics of the past and therefore we could not support a process that ended the divisions," Kuria alleged.
