The opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has attacked President William Ruto's State of the Nation address, claiming it ignored the predicament of the average mwananchi.
President Ruto's speech at Parliament buildings on Thursday, in Mr. Odinga's opinion, was unrealistic and out of step with the public's current sentiment toward the government.
At Friday's "Transforming a Nation" conference organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation, the leader of the coalition party Azimio la Umoja One Kenya they urged the Head of State to wake up from their grandiose delusions.
"The government today is living in denial. If you listened to the State of the Nation address yesterday, it's as if you (President Ruto) were talking to some people who were living in planet Moon; you're not being realistic to problems confronting this country," said Mr. Odinga.
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"And these problems must be confronted frontally, not by diversions here and there. The cost of living is real and it's killing the people; it has to be addressed if you're going to relieve the plight of the people."
The former prime minister continued to express his opinion that the ruling government's misguided policies are to blame for the nation's economy being in worse shape now than it was more than a year ago, before the election.
"There's a devastating loss of trust and confidence in our economy, our financial markets and our government. We're caught in a cycle where reduced spending power leads to loss of jobs which leads to even less spending, where the people can't borrow because rates charged are too high, yet lack of borrowing slows growth and leads to even less credit," he said.
