President William Ruto has re-affirmed that Kenya and Uganda ties are intact despite his Uganda’s counterpart Yoweri Museveni’s military son Muhoozi Kainerugaba threatening to invade Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

President Ruto who spoke during Uganda’s 60th independence anniversary celebrations stated that Kenya and Uganda will remain friends in pursuit of prosperity of the East African Community (EAC) region.

“It is very clear to us that we cannot share poverty and we cannot share hunger, but we can share opportunity and we can share prosperity,” Ruto said.

President Ruto challenged his counterpart Museveni to take charge of those efforts and set out first to eliminate the region’s border challenges, saying that the border challenges had affected the region’s untapped growth.

“As our elder, you have the challenge to lead the charge on ensuring that we bring down the boundaries and the barriers so that we can have a borderless East African community,” he said.

“It is our place as leaders and citizens of the East Africa region to work together so that we can transform our borders which today stand out as barriers and convert them to bridges so that goods, services, and people can move across the region without any impediment,” he added.

Kenya and Uganda’s relationship was tested last week following President Museveni’s son General Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s remarks that were heavily met with criticism in Kenya.

President Museveni acted quickly and forestalled what would have been a diplomatic tiff and apologized to Kenyans and personally to President Ruto.

“I ask our Kenyan brothers and sisters to forgive us,” Museveni said.

He subsequently removed Muhoozi as the commander of the Land forces and promoted him to the rank of full General.

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