Larry Madowo has sparked a heated debate online between Kenya and Tanzania regarding the proficiency of Kiswahili and English languages among their citizenry.
Madowo, who was at a food conference in Tanzania with Kenyan president William Ruto, spoke in defense of Ruto after Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan claimed that Ruto had spoken poor Kiswahili during the climate change summit in Nairobi at the beginning of the week.
Samia said that Ruto told the international delegation that greetings are a "thing" when he should have told them to say "good afternoon".
The head of state said that Kenyans are destroying Kiswahili and need to be brought back to the classroom.
However, Madowo defended Ruto saying that even Tanzanians talk to Kenyans in poor English and they [Kenyans] answer in incorrect Kiswahili and life goes on like well.
"I have to defend my President Ruto because I know we Kenyans and Tanzanians, we are close brothers. We speak to Tanzanians in bad Kiswahili, they answer us in bad English, we move forward..." he said.
He added that there is nothing more to talk about because it is a family matter. President William Ruto for his part noted that his Kiswahili is better than Larry Madowo's.
"I have heard you mention Azimio, Azimio, Azimio, until I got a little worried. Because in our country, the Declaration has a different meaning. On our side, Azimio is an opposition party that believes in a lot of chaos," Ruto said.
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