Ruto Must End Abuse of Office by Foot Soldiers

POLITICAL SUPREMACY: The residents drawn from eight wards in Bobasi walk with a coffin to protest against South Mugirango MP Sylvanus Osoro.
Image: MAGATI OBEBO.

My Star column this weekend.

In case anyone has any doubts, the country is already in the 2027 election mode. This is most unfortunate because what that means is nothing is going to happen for the next several years to improve people’s lives other than those positioning themselves to benefit from the money already being dished around to woo the gullible.

The hoi polloi, namely, the mama mbogas, boda boda riders, and virtually everyone other than those in gainful employment will continue to wallow in the same miserable conditions they were promised would be a thing of the past with the new government but an illusion it remains.

That is not to say President William Ruto cannot turn this ship around or at least prevent it from going over the cliff; he can but the question is, would he?

That remains to be seen, and anyone who cares about the country would still have to give Ruto the benefit of the doubt to at least try and do the right thing to stop this hurtling of the country in the wrong direction.

That assumes we all have the same definition of what the right thing is.

It may not be the case.

Every president has two contradictory choices they must constantly make at any given time: that which is politically expedient on the one hand, and that which is not but is better long term and for the larger good.

It is extremely rare that those two choices can be exercised or carried out at the same time; rather, it is always one at the expense of the other.

Confining this to just Kenya, history is replete with example after example of times political expediency gave birth to major headaches and even deadly outcomes that could have been avoided had the president opting for the expediency instead chose that which was right long term and for the larger good.

However, it does not follow that choosing that which is good or right long term and for the larger good is self-executing for a desired outcome. Rather, successful execution for both political expediency and that which is good or right long term and for the larger good requires exceptional planning, resource allocation, and flawless implementation.

Retired President Uhuru Kenyatta and Azimio leader Raila Odinga fell short in all these three components of strategy execution making it possible for Ruto to pursue that which was politically expedient for him and Kenya Kwanza to a shocking degree of success because Ruto and his team had these components of execution mastered to a tee.

For those who marveled at this brilliance in the execution of Ruto’s campaign strategy, how Ruto has performed as president thus far has exposed for all to see why political expediency always fails in the long run.

That is why it is a far much better proposition to strategize for the long term, even at the expense of losing short term than the other way around.

In other words, in the context of the current situation Ruto finds himself—and therefore the country, Ruto may have brilliantly executed a politically expedient strategy that saw him sworn as president, but that came with a price he is paying, the country is paying, and is poised to make Ruto a one-term president.

The price is the mostly men he owes a debt for their roles in the 2022 politically expedient campaign who are doing nothing but dragging Ruto’s presidency down, providing aide and comfort to other forces that are doing the same, namely, the bad economy, corruption, and austerity measures that are certain to make things worse.

Take Gusii, for example. Ruto’s foot soldier there in 2022 was rewarded with a plum position in the national assembly. As confirmation, this is a position the person was least qualified to hold; the man is accused of abusing the office to throw his lightweight around, which has, on many occasions, resulted in violence.

Put another way, thugism is not a virtue or quality for anything other than backwardness.

How that helps Ruto in Gusii come 2027 is not anyone’s guess because it doesn’t. The president stopping this abuse of office by this person might because doing otherwise will be seen as the president tacitly condoning the character’s violent shenanigans.

 

Ruto’s Pronouncement on Judiciary Is Ill-Advised and Recipe for Anarchy

In my Star column this weekend Ruto’s Pronouncement on Judiciary Is Ill-Advised, I make the case why.

Excerpts:

Ruto’s ascendancy to the presidency prominently featured the very Judiciary.

In Summary

• Yes, the head of state is seemingly besieged with nothing going in any direction he had hoped, and one hopes he finds bearing soon.
• However, in tough times like this, heroes emerge or if one fails, they fail miserably.

President William Ruto’s recent outburst threatening to ignore court rulings caught everyone by surprise. So much so such that some Kenyans on social media wondered whether the President wasn’t setting us all up for another surprise no different from his ascendency to the presidency.

…

Fortunately, the head of state’s pronouncement was met with swift condemnation as well as the ringing of alarm bells across the country. In the old days, when a President wanted to ignore the Judiciary, he did not blab that in public. He just did, not that there was anything to ignore because the then truly rotten Judiciary did what the President told them to do.

All that changed with the promulgation of the new Constitution in 2010. Although a good case can be made that the much heralded and revamped Judiciary has in the recent past suffered some retrogression, it is certainly not to the point even remotely close to the rottenness we had in it before 2010.

…

A rotten potato in the Judiciary is a judge dispensing justice—or more accurately, not dispensing justice on account of how much his or her pocket has been stuffed. A prominent blogger said on social media that the last administration bribed judges to make rulings favourable to the government.

The President echoed this charge in saying that his predecessor’s government had a budget to bribe courts to tilt decisions in its favor.

This begs the question, if this is true as Ruto and the aforementioned blogger would have us believe, what has he done since taking over power to hold those who abused their judicial powers like this responsible?

…

Yes, the head of state is seemingly besieged with nothing going in any direction he had hoped, and one hopes he finds bearing soon. However, in tough times like this, heroes emerge or if one fails, they fail miserably.

Whatever the President does, it cannot make things worse than they are. A question many keep asking is, what happened to Ruto, who executed a presidential campaign unlike any before?

…

What is even more interesting, though sad to watch, is that many of the President’s own men and women are busy gluttonously eating, they’re oblivious to the suffering in the nation they are supposed to help lead.

A shame, indeed, but they have none.

 

Gachagua is Dead Wrong on Mt. Kenya Youth

In my Star column this weekend, Gachagua is Wrong on Mt. Kenya Youth I make the case why. Excerpts:

• The government rightly outlawed Mungiki, but it has not provided a solution to what made the organisation attractive to its followers to begin with.
• Organising the youth for the next general election is something Gachagua cannot stop, and neither can anyone else.

We can all agree that the government must crack down and root out criminal gangs and criminality wherever it raises its ugly head. No rational person would be against such a crackdown or tough measures as long as it is done in accordance with the law.

…

For starters, under what authority did Gachagua order county commissioners to act? Is that not the function of the Cabinet Secretary of Interior or, absent that, the President himself? Did the President delegate this authority to his deputy, and if so, why?

The answers to these questions reveal, in the first instance, what this is all about, and that is the politics of 2027 in general, and Mt Kenya politics specifically. There is no doubt that the mood in the region is such that if elections were to be held today, UDA would not harvest even half of what it did in 2022.

…

On Sunday, police arrested more than 250 young people in Nyeri town, after the police blocked the planned meeting by Njenga.

A video clip was later shared on social media showing the arrested youth cramped in a hall under conditions that can only be termed as unacceptable, especially given none of the arrested were charged with any offence.

The DP  would have us believe this is a necessary crackdown to prevent the reemergence of the outlawed Mungiki but the money is on the government weary and deeply concerned if the youth in Kenya are organised—let alone the youth of Mt Kenya, their force and wrath will be felt by those who have ignored or let them down.

This is what is at the core of this purported crackdown against organizing Mt Kenya youth. Again, if the government has any evidence of the youth being organized to commit crimes, no one will question the suspects from being arrested and charged.

…

It cannot be an argument that organizing the region’s youth—or of any part of the country is the re-emergence of the outlawed Mungiki. The youth of Mt Kenya and their wallowing in abject poverty and unemployment did not cease with the outlawing of Mungiki.

The government rightly outlawed Mungiki, but it has not provided a solution to what made the organization attractive to its followers to begin with.

Organizing the youth for the next general election is something Gachagua cannot stop, and neither can anyone else.