Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna delivered a pointed rebuke to President William Ruto on the floor of the Senate, dismissing the Head of State’s charge that the united opposition has no policy agenda ahead of the 2027 General Election — and making it plain that removing Ruto from power is the plan.
Sifuna, who has been floated as a potential presidential candidate, told the Senate that the opposition’s immediate priorities are restoring meritocracy in government and ending the current administration. He anchored his argument in a figure that cuts deep: claims that Sh12 billion was spent on hospitality at State House while the government pleads poverty on school capitation funds.
“We are being told that Sh12 billion was spent on hospitality at State House, in a country where we are told we have no cash for capitation. So those of you who ask us for a plan, ours is to send you home,” Sifuna said, without blinking.
That number — Sh12 billion on State House hospitality — is the kind of figure that lands differently when teachers go unpaid and public hospitals run dry. Sifuna is betting that young Kenyans feel that contradiction in their bones.
Beyond the sharp rhetoric, Sifuna committed to concrete austerity measures should the opposition take power. He promised that within the first 100 days of a new government, spending at State House would be cut back sharply to redirect money toward teachers’ salaries and hospital funding — a direct contrast to what he characterised as the current administration’s bloated expenditure.
His remarks came one day after Ruto, speaking in Ngong and Ongata Rongai in Kajiado County, accused opposition leaders of using ethnic profiling and intimidation to herd voters in perceived strongholds. Ruto defended the broad-based UDA-ODM political arrangement as a vehicle for national unity and equitable resource distribution, warning supporters not to be “divided through tribalism and hatred” — language he squarely directed at the opposition.
The back-and-forth is no longer background noise. With both sides sharpening their messaging and consolidating support bases, the 2027 race is already being fought in real time — and the stakes for ordinary Kenyans are written into every budget line neither side wants to talk about honestly.
