'We did not invite Suluhu, Kagame, Museveni...' Ruto on why presidents stayed away on Jamhuri Day

Kenya's relations with Uganda and Tanzania are 'perfect,' according to the Head of State, who dismissed claims that President Museveni and Samia Suluhu's absence from Kenya's 60th Jamhuri Day celebrations was a sign of festering relations. 

"Do I attend the national days of other countries? No, does that mean there is a problem?" "No."

"The relations between me and Museveni are perfect; the relationship between Kenya and Tanzania is perfect," President Ruto said. 

He stated that it is not customary for Heads of State to attend the celebrations, just as he does not attend the National Days of other countries. 

"Do they normally attend our Jamhuri day?" President Ruto posed, "No," "How do you ask about the absence of a person who is normally absent?"

President Ruto said during a round table discussion with journalists at State House on Sunday that Kenya's immediate neighbours, including Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania, had not been invited to the celebrations. 

"We didn't invite them; some of them came because we are East Africans," he added. 

Much of the perceived differences between Kenya and her immediate neighbours stem from public declarations by Tanzanian and Ugandan presidents. 

President Suluhu once remarked at a public Islamic function in Zanzibar that investors were now picking Tanzania as their preferred investment hub after seeing that the 'neighbours were on fire'.

"Kati ya mwezi wa May na Juni, tumepokea wawekezaji wengi mno. Lakini ukitizama sababu ni nini. Sababu ni kwamba kwa jirani kunawaka moto..." she said during Kenya's heightened anti-government protests.

In the same, breath President Museveni cut reliance on Kenya for importation of its petroleum products in November and contracted bulk and refinery suppliers to obtain lower-cost petroleum products.

At the time, Uganda was importing more than 90% of its petroleum products through the Port of Mombasa in Kenya and the rest through the Dar es Salaam Port in Tanzania.

President Museveni said that Uganda had been sourcing the same products from middlemen in Kenya at exorbitant prices, exacerbating the country's fuel crisis. 

"Without my knowledge, our wonderful People were buying this huge quantity of petroleum products from middlemen in Kenya," Museveni wrote on X.

"A whole country buying from middlemen in Kenya or anywhere else!! Amazing but true."

He added that it is more cost-effective for Uganda to purchase from refineries abroad and transport the product to Uganda via Kenya and Tanzania.