• Confronting and managing corruption is not an option but the country’s foremost existential battle
• However, some political forces have started opposing it and proceeded to politicise, ethnicise and delegitimise Kenya’s most urgent and crucial project
Image: JACK OWUOR
Can the real William Ruto stand up to be counted in the country’s desperate fight to manage the “massive corruption” crisis ravaging the country!
Kenya is in a catch-22 mix-up of a debilitating corruption epidemic. The majority, led by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, have decided to confront and fix the problem.
They realise that corruption threatens to collapse this country into a sea of hopelessness, and generate an acute humanitarian crisis if the state disintegrates. God forbid!
With the Sh5.8 trillion public debt over-shooting the country’s capacity to service, all revenues (local and borrowed) set aside for development or maintenance of infrastructure and social amenities being looted continuously and shrinking tax revenues, the country currently risks going bankrupt as it happened with Greece not so long ago.
Therefore, confronting and managing corruption is not an option but the country’s foremost existential battle. All sober and patriotic Kenyans have been sufficiently summoned to rise up and participate in slaying this dragon to its death. The fight can’t be abandoned nor postponed just because sections of the population are crying fouls and claiming biases therein.
Uhuru’s timely re-organisation and giving new impetus to frontline public anti-graft agencies such as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions complete with facilitating the hiring of fresh, battle-ready warriors to lead the campaign in the persons of George Kinoti , Twalib Mbarak, and Noordin Hajji respectively has underlined the strong resolve and put corruption culprits on the receiving end.
However, strange things have erupted as some political forces have started opposing it and proceeded to politicise, ethnicise and delegitimise Kenya’s most urgent and crucial project. Strangely, all those on this unpatriotic bandwagon are known disciples and die-hard lieutenants of DP Ruto. What an intriguing coincidence.
This “our people are being finished” song grew into a crescendo and mutated into “DP Ruto is targeted” when investigators moved higher and started questioning PSs and CSs.
Initially, when DP’s foot soldiers rose up to resist the anti-graft war, Kenyans could be mistaken for believing they were a few malcontents or culprits shouting to extricate themselves from their “wages of sin”. But when the group expanded within the pro-DP Ruto wing with open blackmail pronouncements aimed at intimidating Uhuru and forcing the Jubilee 2022 presidency deal into the picture, we all stood to notice more evil plots. Then more recently, the DP came out boldly to recite the “war cries” of his foot-soldiers.
By coming out openly to side with his protesting troops opposed to the anti-graft war, the DP has emerged very conspicuous in the well-meaning war on corruption. So much such that insinuations that he, the DP, could be a culprit in this morass get some eye-catching currency.
This brings us to the big question: Is DP Ruto honest in his anti-graft stand-off? Is he protecting the corrupt or is he genuinely agitating for a credible anti-corruption campaign? Why can’t he help the country understand or help clear the huge dark political and corruption cloud gathering above his head?
Therein crops-up Ruto’s chance to come clean and shame his detractors, if his protestations against what he calls being framed maliciously over 2022 Presidency succession battle are to be believed.
Why did his allies pre-maturely erupt with claims the anti-graft war had been tailor-made to block him from ascending to the Presidency? Where is the evidence? Why has he come out to buttress the same? Why is he attracting most corruption accusations? Why do he and his loud defenders appear to demand to guide and micromanage the anti-corruption investigations?
Or at the least, for his often professed Christianity, — a saved Pentecostal Christian to boot, Ruto should be bold and scoop his salvation from the powerful cup of CONFESSION as clearly documented and advised in the Bible.
If he knows he has strayed and partaken of the sin of corruption and embezzlement of public resources, sincere confession and asking for forgiveness from God and fellow citizens will free him from the guilt.
Indeed it will relieve him of his sins and put the burden on the shoulders of other top Kenyans who are hiding in the woods and probably stocking the fires under his seat yet they could be dirtier. That way, he will be living true to the biblical teaching — “Know the truth and the truth shall set you free”.
Can the honest Ruto come out strongly and lay everything on the table? Can he prove the malice and the framing so that Kenyans can tell off the opportunists in this war? Because then the country can join him in demanding for credible investigations. It will end the current political and ethnicity driven ping pong that threatens to derail this noble war against corruption.