Kenyan President William Samoei Ruto has explained why he decided to call in the army to restore order.

In a television interview at state House yesterday, President Ruto said that he was prompted to summon the army because of the innocent lives that were lost.

“I did my best. If I hadn’t done what I did, things would’ve been much worse. Many people ask me… Mr. President, why did you call in the army? I mean, what choice did I have?

It would have been very reckless of me in the face of the kind of harm that people are going through—the 19 lives that were already lost in the burning of a chief justice office, the parliament, and the rest of it.

It would have been very reckless of me not to mobilize every arm of government and every arm of our security agencies to protect the country and lives.” President Ruto said.

The Kenyan President goes on saying that despite having lost 19 lives, according to him, they had fully prepared for the demonstrations way earlier, which is why the numbers are not many.

“We had information, and that is why we prepared in the manner in which we did. If we hadn’t, we would not be counting 19; we would be counting different numbers.” Ruto said.

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He however defended the young generation that were protesting peacefully saying they have nothing to do with destruction of property as this was done by criminals who will all be held accountable of their wrongs.

“The level of mobilization by criminals was heavy, in fact many of the young well meaning young people left town by 10 maybe 11, because they realized.. you could hear them, guys this is not our group let’s go.. it was in public domain the peaceful protestors finally realized that the whole thing had metamorphosed to something else.” Ruto said