Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja has revealed his role in convincing President Uhuru Kenyatta and his team to work with Deputy President William Ruto in the 2013 General Election.
He worked in President Kenyatta’s campaign even though he had earlier rejected a job offer from him.
By that time, Sakaja was already working as a consultant for State House through Nancy Gitau who was the political affairs director in the office of retired President Mwai Kibaki.
His good work was recognised and even got to write a whole chapter of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 at the age of 24.
Uhuru noticed Sakaja’s sharp brain and tasked his team to hire him in his camp, threatening to fire them if they failed to recruit him.
“Uhuru told his people that Sakaja must come work with him but I refused because I had my small company which does finance. I didn’t want to be a civil servant but he insisted that if they don’t recruit me then they should forget about their jobs,” Sakaja said.
“I told him that vying on a KANU ticket would not work and he tasked us with coming up with a party which he would use. We found a party called National Alliance Party but decided to rename it to The National Alliance (TNA),” he added.
Along with a team that included Gatundu MP Moses Kuria, Uhuru’s camp began to popularise the party.
Devolution CS Eugene Wamalwa was being groomed to be Uhuru’s running mate but Sakaja told the team that Ruto who was in URP was the best candidate.
“I told them for us to win we need at least 60% of Rift Valley votes but they didn’t think it would be possible to work with Ruto and they laughed. I told them that men lie, women lie but numbers don’t.
“That evening Uhuru called me to his room and asked me to explain my strategy to him and he dropped the idea of picking Eugene Wamalwa,” Sakaja revealed.