Kalonzo’s memo to Ruto in fight over 40-year record
President William Ruto chats with former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka at a past event.
Wiper Patriotic Front leader Kalonzo Musyoka has dismissed sustained attacks by President William Ruto, accusing the Head of State of deliberately misrepresenting the opposition leader’s record in public service as the political contest ahead of the 2027 General Election gathers pace.
For weeks, President Ruto has used public rallies and political forums to question Mr Musyoka’s legacy, repeatedly challenging him to “show his development record” from what the president describes as more than 40 years in government.
“He has since corrected me that he has not been in politics for 50 years, but 40. But even then, the road to your home is still a dirt road, so how many years do you need to plan for that? He has not answered me on that one—I am waiting. He has also now come back to say he planned for the road, and not just to his home, but all the way to Ethiopia. But I ask: If you have failed to plan a road to your home, how can you plan one to Ethiopia?” President Ruto said on Thursday at Mukuru in Nairobi.
The road in question is the Kibwezi–Mutomo–Kitui–Bondoni, which passes through Mr Musyoka’s Tseikuru home.
While President Ruto insists that Mr Musyoka made no plans for it while serving in government, first as minister in different portfolios and later as vice president from 2008 to 2013, Mr Musyoka has hit back, saying the Head of State was not being factual.
In a five-page strongly-worded statement by Wiper Secretary General Shakila Abdalla, Mr Musyoka’s party argues that the road was launched in March 2011 by then Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and funded by a Chinese bank. Ms Abdalla insists that Musyoka personally secured the financing in Beijing in 2012.
Ms Abdalla further argues that in 2013, elements within the Jubilee administration of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Dr Ruto “deliberately sabotaged” the project by telling the lender it was not economically viable.
By 2016, Ms Abdalla argued, residents protested the stalled project and were met with police teargas, before the road was re-launched by President Kenyatta and his then deputy, Dr Ruto, in late 2016.
Ms Abdalla further argues that a site visit by Mr Musyoka in early 2017 found no machinery, exposing the relaunch as political theatre.
“With all these, now in 2025, Ruto has the audacity to parade around Lower Eastern, claiming he is "bringing development" to the region. This is not leadership. This is fraud. This is the modus operandi of a con man who has captured the highest office in the land,” Ms Abdalla said in statement.
Desperate attack
Wiper Party said President Ruto’s remarks amount to a distortion of Kenya’s development history and an attempt to score early political points against a key opposition figure.
“This is not an honest debate about development. It is a desperate political attack,” Ms Abdalla said in the statement. “President Ruto is deliberately lying to Kenyans by pretending that development is the personal property of one man or one administration.”
Senator Abdalla said Mr Musyoka’s record could not be reduced to campaign-stage taunts, arguing that his contribution to government should be understood in the context of collective leadership and long-term planning. She pointed to his role during the Kibaki administration, when he served as vice president, and earlier as a senior minister.
“Kalonzo Musyoka was a central figure in the Vision 2030 era, when this country laid down the most ambitious development blueprint it has ever had,” she said. “Roads, institutions and reforms were planned and financed then, not invented yesterday for political convenience.”
The party took particular issue with President Ruto’s repeated public claims that opposition leaders had decades in government without delivering development. According to Senator Abdalla, such arguments ignore how major projects are conceived, funded and implemented over many years and across successive administrations.
“Development is a constitutional right of the people, not a campaign bribe and not a favour from the president of the day,” she said. “What we are seeing now is an attempt to rewrite history so that one man appears as the sole author of progress, while everyone else is painted as useless.”
Wiper also accused the president of claiming credit for projects that were initiated long before his presidency, especially in Lower Eastern Kenya.
“Kenyans are not fools. They remember who planned these projects and who delayed them.”
The response went beyond infrastructure, with Wiper leaders broadening the argument to issues of governance and integrity. Senator Abdalla contrasted Mr Musyoka’s time in office with what she described as mounting public frustration under the current administration.
“Kalonzo Musyoka left office without corruption scandals, without unexplained wealth and without the moral baggage that now weighs down this government,” she said. “You cannot lecture him on development while healthcare is collapsing, education is in crisis and the cost of living is crushing families.”
The exchange reflects an early hardening of positions as President Ruto seeks to define the opposition as relics of the past, while opposition parties frame his attacks as an effort to mask growing discontent.
As the road to 2027 lengthens, the battle over who owns Kenya’s development story — and who bears responsibility for its present challenges — is emerging as a central fault line in the country’s politics.
“This country will not be built on insults and propaganda,” Senator Abdalla said. “Leadership is about institutions, integrity and service and that is a record Kalonzo Musyoka is not afraid to defend.”
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