"The name of William Samoei Ruto will not be there (ballot box)," COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli said on Saturday in Lamu referring to 2022 presidential poll.
Atwoli added that the constitution will be changed to expand the executive where the presidency, premiership and deputy premiers would go to Raila Odinga, Uhuru Kenyatta and Gideon Moi respectively noting that Ruto won't contend for any.
This simple but weighty statement made with a lot of authority and absolute certainty has gotten many thinking loudly especially Ruto's allies who have even called for Atwoli to be questioned by the Director of Criminal Investigations.
“The threat by Atwoli that WSR will not be on the ballot come 2022 shouldn't be taken lightly. The late Hon Muchai and Atwoli disagreed on COTU leadership, by election time he was for sure not on the ballot,” Kericho Senator Aaron Cheruiyot tweeted on Saturday.
Atwoli's statement came hardly three days after a similar disturbing statement was made by former Jubilee Vice Chairman David Murathe during a recent interview on KTN News' Point Blank show.
Murathe, responding to a question posed to him by the show's host, Tony Gachoka, he would answer, "who knows whether William Ruto will there in 2022?"
Murathe's and Atwoli's utterances now leaves many with two unanswered questions yet critical; could there be a secret scheme that the two elderly men are privy to, which the rest of us do not know?
If yes, can we blame their letting the cat out of the bag on senility which could have made them careless enough to go yapping out publicly?
Whatever your answers to the two question are, we can all agree that when people of Atwoli and Murathe's stature in the society make such statements, there is a need to take them to task in order to expound on what they really meant or mean.
Kenyan politics can at times turn out to be deadlier like a Hydrogen bomb and, therefore, when such outbursts are allowed to sieve through just like that unchallenged, the consequences could be dire. Very dire indeed!