STATEMENT BY HON DAVID MARAGA IN RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT RUTO'S ADDRESS TO THE NATION
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Fellow Kenyans,
Before I respond to what President Ruto told you tonight, I want to ask you a simple question, and I want you to answer it honestly in your own home, in your own heart. Are you better off today than you were when William Ruto took office? Look at your table. Look at your payslip, if you still have one. Look at your children's school fees. Look at the price of unga, of fuel, of everything that keeps a family alive. Are you better off? I already know your answer.
It is no.
That question is the one question President Ruto has completely failed to answer tonight and instead tried to sell you more False Hope. I will not let him.
First, let me be direct about where we stand.
Time is up for William Ruto. No policy announcement, no political arrangement, no reshuffling of alliances can dissuade Kenyans from the one mission that now unites us across every county and every community: removing him from power. This is not politics as usual. This is a response to real pain. Kenyans have been killed. Kenyans have been abducted. Corruption has worsened with this President at its very center, not at its margins. The cost of living has crushed households under the weight of reckless governance and reckless borrowing. This is not a policy disagreement. It is a national emergency, and Kenyans know it.
Second, let me tell you what comes after him.
From 2027 to 2032, the leadership that replaces this administration must have one overriding priority above all others: resetting this country to the rule of law and to constitutionalism. I say this plainly because no policy, no vision, however well articulaed, and no programme, however lofty its promises, will succeed in a country run by cartels whose only interest is enriching themselves and harming anyone who stands in their way.
You cannot build an economy on a foundation that criminal networks control. You cannot promise prosperity while cartels sit at the center of government. The first task of the next government is not a stadium or a highway. It is restoring a Kenya where the law applies to everyone, including the President.
Third, accountability will not be optional.
Those who have looted this country's resources with impunity must be held to account through strong penal sanctions, and every shilling of stolen and corruptly acquired wealth returned to the Kenyan people. Not promises. Not new visions. Not task forces that go nowhere. Real consequences, and real restitution. Kenyans have watched thieves walk free for too long while ordinary citizens are jailed for stealing bread. That era ends.
Now, to what the President said tonight.
He recited a list of projects and lofty, aspirations as proof of progress. I say to you: a stadium without investment in our athletes, our footballers, our young talent, is a monument built for headlines, not for our children's futures. A market built without protecting the farmer from exploitation is an empty shell dressed up for a photograph. Brick and mortar are not development when the people living beside them cannot afford a meal or use them.
Government statistics claiming the economy is growing while te majority are starving are empty rhetoric. Kenya will grow, but it will grow at its own pace, led by its own people, not through Ruto's punitive taxation and endless political posturing about how to become a first world country.
And the subjects he avoided entirely tonight: the runaway corruption, the rogue police units, the hit squads, the abductions used to silence dissent, and the human rights violations that have made Kenyans afraid to speak in their own country are the pillars on which we will rise. Ruto will not mention them because he cannot defend them. He doesn’t believe in them. Or this Constitution.
Kenyans should ask themselves again tonight, after this address if they are better off. And if the answer is no, know that you are not alone, and know that a different Kenya, governed by law, accountable to its people, and free of state capture, is not just possible. It is coming.
By David K. Maraga, Chief Justice Emeritus & UGM Co-Party Leader