Deputy President William Ruto had a colorful National Delegates Conference for his newly formed UDA Party at the Kasarani Indoor arena on Tuesday.
The pomp, colour, and energy put in the speeches made will have one believing that Kenya will be the new Singapore or Australia six months after Ruto and his colleagues assume power.
From the promise of delivering an economic magic through the bottom up model to “dealing” with state agencies such as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the Kenya Revenue Authority, Ruto made one big promise after another to the wild cheers of his charged crowd of delegates and political aspirants.
The entire speech of the country’s second-in-command for nine years and several other years in the Cabinet —similar to the preceding ones of his political army — carried the tone of a team that is out to respond to what they made the delegates believe to be “unfair treatment” by their colleagues in government.
Kenyans should pay attention to the tone of the event and summon some memory, and then objectively decide what to make of the highlight of the moment — DP Ruto’s pledges.
Ruto is an orator. He is fluent and confident. In the social streets, Kenyans have labeled him tags such as “Mr six months”. This is a tag he earned after the famous promise to have historic stadiums such as “Kamariny and the Wote stadiums” completed within six months of the election.
It is imperative to note that the Sports ministry is one of the dockets initially given to Ruto in the power sharing deal with President Uhuru Kenyatta. Under Rashid Echesa, Ruto’s close confidant from Western Kenya, the ministry performed very poorly. For this reason, the President had to send Echesa packing and replaced him with Amina Mohamed.
Ruto is also behind the landmark ambitious campaign pledge in 2013 that all pupils joining Grade 1 would get laptops to enhance digital literacy. As we all know, the project failed. The point of this argument is that over time, Ruto has come out as a politician who is a populist strategist. He is known to make crowd-moving pronouncements, which are seriously wanting in viability and situational applicability.
The bottom up model that was from the onset aimed at generating a wave of excitement among the youth and struggling Kenyans lacks structure and relatable precedence of evident success. His own team themselves are not able to explain how they plan to adapt the model to match the Kenyan environment. This shows a serious lack of commitment to keeping their end of the bargain with the Kenyan voter.
Recently, his camp was dealt a hefty blow when Uhuru’s Jubilee Party endorsed Ruto’s rival, Raila Odinga for the presidency. After the KICC endorsement of Raila and the Jacaranda declaration on Saturday March 11, Ruto and his brigade landed in the President’s home turf of Kiambu county in a series of rallies that climaxed in the Thika stadium rally.
To note, none of the speakers had a promise for better services for the Kiambu and Mt Kenya people. All the rallies were marked by unprecedented, uncouth, indecent bashing and disrespect for the President. He was unreasonably rebuked for exercising his democratic right to endorse a different candidate.
The NDC at Kasarani was no different. Everybody witnessed crowds being coordinated to adopt chants aimed at demeaning Uhuru. The Deputy President and his speakers threw shades at the President. The reality is that the only agenda that most people carried from the convention is that Uhuru, and by extension, anybody else who does not support Ruto is a “traitor” who should be condemned, and not accommodated, as the spirit of mature democracy dictates.
Ruto introduced the “hustler” campaign narrative as a departure from ethnic and individual-based politics to issue and ideology-based politics aimed at impacting the livelihoods of the common citizen. Somewhere along the campaign trail, Ruto and his brigade have forgotten about his promise and turned his campaigns into a smear crusade against Uhuru.
The quest for Ruto’s presidency, fellow Kenyans, is not about transforming the economy or governing in an inclusive and sustainable manner as he promises. It is about settling political scores against President Kenyatta and everybody else who has failed to give him the endorsement that he feels entitled to.
Kenya is bigger than any individual and for this reason, Kenyans should shun individual-based politics and embrace politics of tolerance, respect and nationalistic agenda. It is not time to teach politicians who do not support Ruto’s presidential bid a lesson. It is time to support the dawn of a new political era of inclusivity, tolerance, and respect for democracy.
Whatever promises Ruto made, he will have forgotten about them in six months’ time, and will have to be reminded in interviews. Kenyans should be the wiser!
I wish Kenyans and I could believe and attain what Ruto’s colourful speech at Kasarani promised. But this is a difficult task given the historical mismatch between words and deed associated with him.
On this, history advises all of us with a memory to dismiss every one of the promises given. Sorry!
