Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja has described President Uhuru Kenyatta as a leader who puts the country’s interest first before his personal interests.
The former Chairman of defunct TNA party says for the period he has known the President who he termed as his political mentor; he has exhibited selflessness in his leadership for the sake of the country.
“I remember one thing that his Excellency once told me many years ago when we were forming TNA…and he told me, Sakaja, listen very carefully; if I ever ask you to do anything for me, it must be first good for the country, the society or the family before myself as an individual.
If it is good for me but bad for society, bad for the family, bad for the country; you can say no. That’s the man, Uhuru Kenyatta,” he remarked Wednesday evening at the JKL show on Citizen TV.
He was speaking in reference to unity calls by the President and his political rival Raila Odinga on March 9 at the steps of Harambee House.
Sakaja intimated that even before the two leaders met at Harambee House, he was sure they would at one point come together for the sake of the country to end the cycle of vicious and hateful politics.
“I knew it would happen eventually,” he said noting the country was “hurtling to an abyss” with tribal divisions and hate among Kenyans.
The Nairobi Senator said the course for unity made him take a political risk when he bailed out Embakasi East MP Paul Ongili alias Babu Owino from Police cells in Parklands.
This, he said, was a precedent to elected leaders to embrace unity of purpose and shun ethnicity.
“That’s why I was able to take a step, politically risky to go and seek the release of Babu Owino in the cell because I knew eventually the kind of politics in this country wants,” he offered.
The Senator also defended Jubilee against sentiments by a British data firm, Cambridge Analytica, that it wrote the party’s manifesto, speeches and took care of its branding in 2013 and 2017 general elections.
The firm’s top bosses revealed this in an expose aired by British’s Channel 4 News on Monday.
But Sakaja said they were “overselling” their company because he, together with Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria, designed and branded TNA and later Jubilee’s logo.
Cambridge Analytica has been accused of launching a digital smear campaign against Raila and at the same time, painted Uhuru in positive light with the intent to influence voters in favour of Jubilee in last year’s general polls.