GIDEON MOI SAYS KANU WILL NOT JOIN JAP

Baringo Senator Gideon Moi has said that Kanu will not join the new Jubilee Alliance Party (JAP).

He said this Friday as he launched a recruitment drive for his party in the North Rift while maintaining that the independence party would not join the ruling coalition.

Mr Moi, who is also the Kanu chairman, asked Deputy President William Ruto to keep off his party’s affairs in the vote-rich Rift Valley region.

The Baringo Senator, who seems to be pushing his presidential ambitions higher, intensified his drive to revamp Kanu.

On Friday, he engaged in a heated verbal confrontation with Elgeyo-Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen at a rally in West Pokot County in the increasingly bitter turf rivalry that is emerging between him and the Jubilee leadership.

The Baringo Senator has for the last one week been embroiled in political confrontation with the Deputy President and his allies following his quest to step up efforts to revamp his party in the Rift Valley.

Mr Moi is taking advantage of emerging cracks in Mr Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) in the South Rift coupled with confusion over the formation of JAP.

SHAPE UP KANU

Saturday’s suspension of several key allies of the Deputy President over corruption allegations seems to have played in Mr Moi’s favour with the Baringo Senator camping in the Rift Valley for the third day to drum up support for Kanu and shape his own political path.

Speaking in Karelach-kelat Primary School in West Pokot County where he presided over a fund-raiser on Friday accompanied by West Pokot Senator John Lonyangapuo (Kanu) and party’s secretary general Nick Salat, Mr
Moi told the Deputy President to either respect Kanu or shut up.

But speaking during the same meeting, Elgeyo-Marakwet Senator Murkomen, played down Mr Moi’s presidential ambitions.

But Mr Moi, who is also the son of former President Daniel arap Moi, would have none of it and told Mr Murkomen that his efforts to play down Kanu’s re-emergence was an exercise in futility.

“Go and report to your master that I have not spoken yet and when I speak, it will be unstoppable,” Mr Moi told the Elgeyo Marakwet senator.

Mr Moi said he wondered why there had been speculations, murmurs and uncalled for remarks from jittery politicians over his recent tours of the region.

“I toured Kericho, Nandi and Uasin Gishu counties and heard that wananchi, particularly farmers, were suffering and when I spoke about the plight of the desperate farmers, the DP and his allies read politics and started making noise,” he said.

Mr Moi asked JAP and Mr Ruto’s URP to leave him and Kanu alone.

Speaking in Uasin Gishu County last week, Mr Ruto described Mr Moi as a “political greenhorn who is not yet ready for State House.”

But Mr Moi responded on Friday by saying: “If traversing the Rift Valley made them believe and describe me as a lone ranger and greenhorn, so be it.”

During Friday’s meeting, Mr Moi was accompanied by Kanu party registration officials armed with registration materials ready to recruit more members in the region.

Speaking in Kalenjin, Mr Moi said, amid laughter: “They should know that I am Gideon Kipsiele arap Moi, the son of an elder. Nothing is peculiar about me. Don’t you see me? Do I have anything funny like a tail?”

During the meeting those in attendance flashed the Kanu one-finger salute with some carrying live cockerels.

The cockerel is the symbol of the party.
Mr Moi reminded his critics that it was time to engage in development and not politics because time for election politics was not yet ripe.

“Let’s help address the plight of our people and shelve the political confrontations until when it’s time is due,” he said.