How President should respond to Catholic bishops' criticism

Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops from left, Philip Anyolo, Maurice Muhatia, Anthony Muheria and Martin Kivuva during a press conference in Nairobi on April 11th 2024. [Collins Oduor, Standard. ] President William Ruto will make peace with millions of Kenyans when he addresses the nation from Parliament if he owns up shortcomings in his leadership that have been singled out and apologises for any goofs. Any attempt to defend his two-year rule will inflame the anger among Kenyans. The President should simply admit that the Kenya Kwanza administration has had many challenges and give a reform roadmap. To start with, he should politely respond to all concerns identified in the hard-hitting 'greetings' by the influential Catholic bishops. As the President put it sarcastically last weekend, the bishops sent him 'greetings' in which they accused his administration of lying and not fulfilling promises. The President should take a minute to reflect on what he said that the church now terms as lies and get a convincing answer. Any attempt to turn the heat on the clergy will be counter-productive. Also the President should use the floor of the House to respond to Morara Kebaso who has alleged that majority of the projects that he launched as deputy president and now as president are white elephants. Since today is his day, Dr Ruto should talk about each of these projects, telling Kenyans about their actual progress. He should also tell us what went wrong with the projects that stalled despite having a fixed completion time-frame and also give the people hope that they will be completed. Kenyans know that Dr Ruto wants the best for the country. It's his desire to transform the dilapidated Kenyan economy into a Singapore-like developed country within the shortest time possible. However, truth be told, those helping him to plan are setting him up for failure. While Ruto won't want to be the first one term-president, the tens of the so-called advisors are letting him. He should sack all of them and replace them with some of his most ardent critics. How would they advise him to go to give the Catholic Church huge sums of money without first reflecting and intelligently checking if the donation would be accepted? This embarrassment would have been avoided had those in charge of intelligence did their work as expected. Again, those pushing Ruto to start visiting areas dominated by supporters of the impeached deputy president are his enemies who want him publicly humiliated. The mountain hasn't healed yet from Rigathi Gachagua's ouster. Let the region heal and it can heal through completion of key promised projects and not sacking or replacing pro-Gachagua MPs in Parliament and civil servants. I suggest that the President lets his Cabinet secretaries to criss-cross the country and implement his government's agenda. When he keeps moving from one county to another, the President will find himself making even more pledges that will translate to massive financial resources which his government lacks at the moment. The President should also limit his public utterances to key functions and focus more on fulfilling the promises he has already made. The Church has spoken and we hope it will now take a break and wait for action. Let the President's diehards go slow on castigating the Church and ask themselves how they have made the President unpopular through their arrogant rebuttals to any criticism directed at the government. The writer is a media practitioner. omanga4@gmail.com

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