Hours after former President Uhuru Kenyatta attacked his successor, President William Ruto, the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Party has penned a hard-hitting open letter, asking Kenya’s fourth head of state to behave like a statesman. The letter, co-authored by UDA Chairperson Cecily Mbarire and party Secretary General Hassan Omar Hassan, details how Uhuru left Kenya in ruins, with Ruto spending more than three years to clean up the mess. At the same time, the letter enumerates flagship projects undertaken by the Kenya Kwanza administration to make Kenya a better place for all.Here is UDA’s open letter to Uhuru Kenyatta.
“President Uhuru Kenyatta, we have heard you loud and clear. First, temper your intense bitterness, fierce jealousy, endless envy, and toxic obsession with William Ruto.
It is a fact that William Ruto won the 2022 election against your wishes and political schemes. For once, be a democrat. William Ruto is now the President of the Republic of Kenya. That is a reality you must live with and accept.
You were President for 10 years, and like every administration, yours had successes alongside monumental and gigantic failures that make your tenure incomparable not only to the preceding administrations, but also to the first three years of the current administration. In many respects, you handed over one of the most broken governments in Kenya’s modern history.
You claim to have handed over power peacefully to William Ruto. Of course you did. You had no option. That is the beauty and finality of our constitutional democracy. But you handed over a collapsing economy, a suffocating public debt burden, broken institutions, demoralised sectors, and a country on the brink.
In fact, by your own admission during the Azimio Parliamentary Group meeting, you openly confessed that you expected Kenya to collapse within three months of President William Ruto taking office because your administration had deliberately wrecked the economy so badly in order to leave Kenyans desperate, dependent, and beholden to you.
You were convinced that the country would crash under the weight of the failures and economic sabotage your administration had engineered. In fact, one could reasonably ask whether the real objective in 2022 was not merely securing victory for your preferred candidate, the Right Honourable Raila Odinga, but rather creating conditions that would later allow you to return draped in the garments of a false saviour.
Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for millions of Kenyans and our country, William Ruto stabilised the economy and prevented the default disaster your administration had engineered.
Kenyatta left the economy in a mess
Mr. Kenyatta, you left behind an economy suffocated by debt and headed dangerously toward default. Kenya was surviving on expensive debt, runaway subsidies, and financial recklessness. Inflation was spiralling, investor confidence had collapsed, foreign reserves were under pressure, and the country was staring at economic ruin. What you handed over was not a functioning economy; it was a ticking time bomb.
William Ruto inherited the wreckage your administration left behind and stabilised the country. Kenya did not default despite the economic landmines you left behind. Inflation has eased, interest rates are stabilising, confidence is gradually returning, and the economy has begun recovering from the destruction caused under your tenure. Mr. Kenyatta, cut Mr. Ruto some slack. He has spent the last three years cleaning up the mess you created in ten.
Mr Kenyatta, you also destroyed the agricultural sector, the backbone of Kenya’s economy. Fertiliser prices exploded to KSh7,500 per bag under your watch. Sugar factories collapsed into corruption and paralysis. Sugarcane farmers waited over a year for payments, while workers went for years without salaries. Coffee farmers were left at the mercy of cartels and exploitation, earning miserable returns of barely KSh50 per kilo.
Ruto Reviving Economy
Today, William Ruto has revived the sector you nearly killed. Fertiliser has been subsidised to KSh2,500 per bag, maize production has significantly improved, coffee prices have tripled to KSh150 per kilo, sugar factories have roared back to life, and Kenya is steadily moving toward sugar self-sufficiency. The unga prices you left at KSh 250 per 2kg packet are now retailing at between KSh 120 and KSh 140 per 2kg packet.
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Mr Kenyatta, you failed spectacularly in universal healthcare. The defunct NHIF became a corruption pit drowning in debt while millions of Kenyans remained uncovered. By the time you left office, NHIF had only about 8 million active contributors and debts exceeding KSh32 billion. Your so-called Universal Health Coverage was a spectacular failure.
The closest you came to even attempting universal healthcare was a mixture of tiptoeing, indecision, and convoluted experimentation disguised as pilot programmes in Kisumu, Nyeri, Machakos, and Isiolo counties. Shockingly, even this politically choreographed programme in the four counties was a spectacular failure.
Today, under William Ruto, five landmark pieces of legislation have been enacted to replace the defective NHIF law and provide a sound foundation for the delivery of universal healthcare. More than 31 million Kenyans have already been onboarded onto the Social Health Authority, with over KSh150 billion paid to hospitals and health facilities across the country in just 18 months for services rendered to Kenyans.
Mr. Kenyatta, you also left behind confusion and collapse in the education sector. You imposed a curriculum that teachers, parents, and students barely understood, while universities were crippled by a broken funding model that pushed many to the brink of insolvency by 2022. Kenya was also left facing a shortage of more than 120,000 teachers after years of neglect and failed recruitment.
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William Ruto has since turned the situation around. The curriculum was streamlined into Competency-Based Education and Training (CBET), more than 100,000 teachers have already been hired, with 20,000 more set to be recruited this year, and the university funding model has been restructured to support deserving students while helping institutions recover from financial distress.
Mr. Kenyatta, you abandoned affordable housing out of cowardice, indecision, and political fear. You launched it for headlines, then ran away from it the moment resistance emerged. And by the way, President Ruto, too, faced resistance, rejection, court battles, ridicule, and relentless political attacks over the same project, but the difference is now clear: where you retreated, he advanced; where you hesitated, he acted decisively. Like many of your projects, your housing agenda became yet another monument of prevarication, hesitation, and incompetence.
Today, under William Ruto, Affordable Housing is a nationwide reality. In just three years, over 273,000 housing units are under construction across the country. 640,000 jobs have been created. Entire new urban centres are emerging. Markets, hostels, and supporting infrastructure are rising alongside the housing projects.
In Kiambu County alone, the very place from which you launched your typical vengeful and half-hearted attacks against President Ruto, the Ruto administration is undertaking one of the country’s largest Affordable Housing Programme (AHP) investments alongside major social infrastructure projects, with a combined value of approximately KES 60.6 billion.
Currently, 15 affordable housing projects delivering 17,127 housing units are underway across multiple sites in the county, representing an investment of more than KES 43 billion. In fact, if you took a short walk from your home in Ichaweri, you would see the ongoing Gatundu Town Affordable Housing Project, already 35% complete and expected to deliver 1,000 housing units at a cost of approximately KES 2.5 billion.
Your Gatundu South Constituency is also benefiting from the ongoing Mutati Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) Market in Kiamwangi Ward and the planned Mundoro Modern Market in Kiganjo Ward, alongside student hostels, police housing, and school infrastructure projects, including a 580-bed hostel at Gatundu TVET and a 2,520-bed student village at Mama Ngina University. Those towering buildings and construction cranes are not imagination or empty political rhetoric; they are tangible evidence of progress. Real work. Real delivery.
Mr. Kenyatta, let us talk about the Mau Summit Road.
That project sat on your desk for 10 years, gathering dust while Kenyans suffered endless traffic, deaths, losses, and economic paralysis. You could neither make a decision nor implement one. Your administration buried the project in bureaucracy, confusion, and questionable contracts. For an entire decade, all Kenyans got from you were excuses and endless announcements.
William Ruto came in, terminated the deadweight arrangements that had stalled the road, and construction had begun. The trucks you now see, the heavy machinery, and the round-the-clock activity are signs of actual work, not the theatrical launches and empty speeches your administration became famous for.
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And speaking of theatrics, Kenyans still remember how, early in your tenure, you proudly walked around JKIA launching a so-called new terminal project. Ten years later, nothing meaningful had materialised beyond erecting a canvas tent on the tarmac a national embarrassment.
President William Ruto once again came in with a solution. In fact, a modern JKIA expansion project would already be well underway were it not for political incitement against the project in a desperate attempt to keep Kenya’s premier international airport trapped in stagnation and decay. Thankfully, despite the sabotage, procurement is underway, and construction will begin this year.
And by the way, are you aware that Talanta City is now becoming a reality under William Ruto? And have you noticed the dozens of stadia coming up across the country? Under your leadership, they remained mere promises. Today, they are becoming reality. Are you aware that the Bomas International Convention Centre project, something successive administrations, including yours, failed to properly conceptualise or develop, is finally taking shape?
These are the kinds of legacy projects your administration talked endlessly about, but never delivered.
Fuel crisis and astonishing hypocrisy
Now, let us discuss fuel prices and your astonishing hypocrisy. Kenyans vividly remember your words when fuel prices skyrocketed under your administration. You arrogantly dismissed Kenyans by saying: “Bei imepanda, uliza Uhuru. Yaani mimi Uhuru niko Ukraine? Mimi nafanya nini huko? Jameni.” That statement perfectly captured your leadership style – detached, dismissive, and allergic to responsibility.
You left behind a fuel subsidy debt of over KSh156 billion. Fuel shortages became the norm. Long queues formed across petrol stations. Kenyans carried jerrycans from one station to another searching for fuel like is happening currently in neighbouring countries.
Under President William Ruto, despite global instability and rising international fuel prices, fuel remains available across the country. More importantly, he is pursuing energy security instead of temporary political gimmicks financed through reckless borrowing.
President William Ruto is not hiding behind excuses or asking Kenyans whether ‘he is in the Strait of Hormuz.’ He is implementing both immediate and strategic interventions, including reducing Kenya’s dependence on imported fuel by developing local oil resources in Turkana and across the region while also working with East African Partner States to establish a regional refinery. At the same time, his administration is investing in renewable energy, modern public transport, electric mobility, and stronger energy infrastructure. This includes exempting the first 100,000 electric vehicles from duty while attracting EV manufacturers to establish production facilities in Kenya. That is leadership.
What exactly did your administration do to prepare Kenya for future global shocks other than borrowing recklessly, inflating projects, enriching cartels, and weaponising propaganda? What long-term solution did you leave behind?
If your administration had planned with seriousness and put in place long-term solutions that insulated Kenya from global fuel shocks, perhaps the country would not still be so vulnerable to every international energy crisis. But once again, William Ruto is being compelled to address the consequences of your administration’s lack of vision, foresight, and long-term planning over an entire decade.
Mr Kenyatta, we also heard you arrogantly declare that whenever there is a problem in Kenya, people should come looking for you.
But Kenyans should know that when the country needed collective effort and national resolve, President William Ruto reached out to you. He sought cooperation for the sake of national stability and continuity. You refused. Instead, you retreated into bitterness and political vengeance.
Since leaving office, you have dedicated yourself to undermining the very government you handed over. You operate from behind the scenes, mobilising political hostility, fueling public anger, and quietly hoping the country fails so that your prediction of collapse can somehow appear correct.
You are increasingly inciting young people against the government, exploiting their frustrations and emotions not to build the country, but to advance your political bitterness and vendetta.
Mr. Kenyatta, that is not statesmanship; that is ego and political impunity.
It is time you stepped up and conducted yourself like a former Head of State, like the Statesman Kenya expects you to be. True statesmanship rises above personal bitterness for the good of the country. Yet instead of offering ideas, perspective, or constructive leadership, you spend your time launching attacks against William Ruto from political podiums while offering no solutions.
The truth is painfully obvious – just as you did not want William Ruto to win, you now desperately want him to fail.
You are actively encouraging hostility against this administration, assembling political opportunists and repackaging them as your latest political project,
exploiting public frustration, and inciting sections of young people against the government, not because you have alternatives to offer, but because you still cannot come to terms with political defeat. 43. Please, Mr. Kenyatta, let us stop the pretense.”
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