The new topic for this year’s Jamhuri Day, which falls on December 12, has been revealed by President William Ruto.

Ruto announced that the future holiday, which will be called “Innovation Jamhuri Day,” will be attended by tech experts from all around the world in keeping with the theme.

The Head of State stated that this will provide Kenyans with a forum to discuss with technology experts from Facebook and Google for partnerships while addressing the official start of the 2022 Kenya Innovation Week at the Sarit Expo Centre in Nairobi.

“I deliberately decided that this year’s Jamhuri Day is going to be profiled properly and themed as the innovation Jamhuri Day,” he said.

Adding;

“I have instead of inviting the usual people we invite, I have decided to invite our technology leaders worldwide from Facebook and from Google so that we can share opportunities as the world is slowly becoming digital.”

Ruto also mentioned that the country’s shopping malls will soon all have internet access thanks to his government’s current plans. “We want to ensure every shopping centre will be on the internet and have a hotspot. We also want to lay our fibre network on the Kenya Power transmission lines so that 8.5 million homes that are connected to electricity are equally connected to the internet,” Ruto said.

On the other hand, Azimio leaders have different plans for that day

In the meantime, the Azimio party’s leader, Raila Odinga, declared that on December 12, 2022, they would organise separate Jamhuri Day festivities to express their opposition to what they view as a constitutional breach by the Kwanza government of Kenya.

On Monday, December 5, officials of the Azimio party, including Raila Odinga and Martha Karua, announced the location of the “public discussions with patriots”: Nairobi’s Jacaranda Gardens.

President William Ruto’s administration was urged not to obstruct the meeting by Raila, who claimed the rally would be peaceful.

“On the 12th of December, we are going to Jacaranda Gardens in Embakasi, not Kamukunji. We will be celebrating Jamhuri Day with Kenyan patriots and it is also going to be a very peaceful congregation. No protests, no picketing, although that is also guaranteed by the constitution of Kenya,” Raila said.

“If we wanted to do a demonstration or protest, we would just inform the police to provide security and do it, but we are not demonstrating or engaging in any act of thuggery and hooliganism and no property is going to be destroyed. The government should not use this as an excuse to bring thugs there to try to disrupt this function.”

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