Presidential aspirant Reuben Kigame has fired at President William Ruto over leadership style in handling key government projects while maintaining that every project he has a hand in crushes.
Kigame, who is seeking a presidential seat for the second time ahead of the 2027 general elections, made his remarks on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, during an interview with a local media house.
On his part, Kigame criticised Ruto for failing to deliver within the health sector, blaming him further for transitioning NHIF to SHA.
“And the performance of Ruto in just three years is nothing but impressive because everything he touches crushes or gets destroyed. If he touches education, it goes down, even the funding itself. He touches health, you know, removes NHIF, and starts this SHA thing,” he added.
At the time, Kigame compared notes on how he would run the government contrary to Ruto’s way of governance, especially with key projects.
“If you look at how Ruto is running the government and how I would run it, it’s totally different, because for me, people have to be the centre. For him, it’s his cronies who have to be the centre,” Kigame said.
Kigame went further, blaming Ruto for prioritising projects that he alleges Kenyans do not need while neglecting essential, people-centred projects.
“You go into all these ghost payments, and so on. The affordable housing, you know, he prioritises something that people are not even asking for and neglects the essential people-centred things,” Kigame said.
Similarly, Kigame called out Ruto over the construction of the Naivasha-Malaba railway, where he alleges the railway construction plan passes through Ruto’s piece of land; hence, it is not a national development but instead capitalism.
“I would not allow America to build that four-lane expressway to Mombasa before you do the dual carriage from Mombasa to Malaba. You don’t invest in a railway line that terminates at your shamba in Naivasha. That is not national development; instead, that is capitalistic,” Kigame said.
Blind president
His criticism follows his recent remarks, where he boldly stated that Kenya is now ripe for a blind president, while stating that previously Kenya has had five seeing presidents who have failed to deliver.
Kigame, who made his remarks on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, during an interview with a local media house, firmly noted that if sight could fix Kenya’s problems, then the five previous presidents might have fixed them.
“I actually think Kenya is ripe for a blind president. And it may happen only once anyway, and then you can go back to seeing presidents,” Kigame stated.
Kigame has argued that while Kenya has had five presidents, Kenya still has problems, hence ruling out that perhaps they see too much.
“If sight could fix the problems of Kenya, we’ve had five seeing presidents, and we still have problems. In fact, haya macho yanaweza kuwa ndio shida; you people see too much,” Kigame said.
