NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 30- Former President, the late Mwai Kibaki was a true demonstration of bottom-up, Deputy President William Ruto.
Bottom-up is an economic model the Deputy President has adopted and hopes to implement if elected Kenya’s fifth President.
Ruto was speaking in Othaya during the funeral of the late President, who died at the age of 90 years.
Despite coming from a humble family and a little-known village, the Deputy President said Kibaki was able to become a great academician and eventually a President.
“We have come to mourn his demise but to also celebrate him as the father to the nation of Kenya. To the people of Thunguri, thank you very much for bringing up a great Kenyan, whom today we are celebrating,” he said during the burial ceremony attended by a host of leaders led by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
“Mzee Kibaki from Thunguri here in Othaya, in a little-known village just like Bethlehem, accomplished many things. From here he became a great scholar, economist, leader and a great President, and a father of the nation. If there is a demonstration of bottom-up, we can learn from Mwai Kibaki.”
Like Kibaki through the revival of Kenya’s economy, Ruto urged his colleagues in government and politics to inspire the Kenyan youth, that they too, “if they work hard and pray, can make it.”
Like the former Head of Public Service Ambassador Francis Muthaura, the Deputy President said Kibaki was “the father of modern Kenya.”
“And even as he thought about big infrastructural projects, Mwai Kibaki did not forget the ordinary people.”
He gave the example of zero-rating the motorbikes. The boda-boda sector now employs more than 1 million people in Kenya.
“In him, we had an embodiment of the unity of our nation,” he said.
He said during the ICC cases that he and President Kenyatta faced, the late President, “stood as a father to us.”
As Agriculture Minister, he said Kibaki was there to offer him “wisdom” to address challenges the farmers were facing.
“The first subsidized fertilizer was brought by the third President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki,” he said.
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