President William Ruto has lashed out at Kenyans, saying they love and are fixated on bad news and are always eager to celebrate failure.

At a breakfast with students from PCEA Booth Girls’ High School in Nairobi on Thursday, Mr Ruto said Kenyans would rather celebrate failure than appreciate success.

“Kenya people don’t believe good news. People are used to bad news. It is very difficult for people to appreciate success. But somehow people celebrate failure,” Mr Ruto said.

“If we say we are building additional classrooms in Nairobi, we’ll it is that. But if we say the education in Nairobi is finished people will clap because I don’t know why as a nation we never want to hear good news. So I want to say we are going to change this city,” he added.

Pledging to build 240 additional classrooms in Nairobi within 90 days, Mr Ruto announced that KSh 1 billion has been allocated to address classroom shortages in the country’s capital.

Mr Ruto, who rode on a populist posture to power, has experienced waning public acceptance after a finance bill sparked fatal protests across the country for over a month last year.

The protests saw Kenyan police kill scores of protesters. However, Mr Ruto later sacked all his cabinet members and scrapped budgetary allocations to the offices of the first and second lady in a move to placate protesters.