More than 16 months ago, I penned a column arguing that Deputy President William Ruto’s political sins were costing him ascendancy to the presidency.
I noted among these sins to be rushing to scheme his ascension to the presidency immediately after being sworn in 2018, as President Uhuru Kenyatta slept on the wheel.
Ditto initially clandestinely undermining and smearing Uhuru and former PM Raila Odinga in Mt Kenya region, which morphed into Ruto publicly taking on the President and the ‘system’ in an unprecedented daring manner.
In that piece, I noted there was more but any one of the political sins Ruto committed was fatal politically but taken together, one could not but conclude Ruto had nailed shut his political coffin.
If Ruto had hammered the last nail tightly shutting his political coffin 16 months ago, he has brought iron and steel reinforcement to the coffin to remove any doubts as to whether it can be reopened easily.
Nothing illustrates this more vividly than the recent saga involving his aborted trip to Uganda. There are so many things wrong with this saga and all point to the iron and steel reinforcement of Ruto’s political coffin.
First, many have asked — and it is a question worth repeating over and over until we get answers — why is Ruto making so many trips to Uganda and so regularly?
For those who hasten to show Raila having previously made similar trips to Uganda, two words for you: Common sense.
An opposition leader, a deputy president or any government official for that matter making a trip to a neighboring country is a dog bites man story; nothing newsworthy about it and many go unnoticed or not even covered at all in the news.
Second, and this speaks to the uniqueness of these visits by Ruto to Uganda. He is on record saying he is a broker for foreign investors interested in investing in Uganda!
If that does not strike you as odd, then you are likely a Rutoite who would hear no evil, see no evil, or speak no evil about him and that is fine as it is your prerogative.
For the rest, such conduct by the Deputy President when he is peddling the disingenuous “hustler” narrative symbolized by giving the poor wheelbarrows is odd to say the least.
It is also a bad move politically, regardless of what benefits Ruto is getting from being a broker for investors in Uganda. It is bad news for Ruto because it adds to an already building narrative that he has sinister intentions should he lose or be rigged out in 2022.
It is a narrative Ruto himself is not helping beat back by his in-your-face utterances daring the system and anyone who wants to stop him to try and do so and be received by what he essentially calls God’s wrath.
I do not believe knowing what the man went through with the ICC that Ruto will risk going that direction. However, that does not mean those around him, and especially the hardcore, reckless ones would not contemplate carrying out these threats.
Third, having been methodically neutered as Deputy President, Ruto has decided to cling to the position to milk it to the maximum. He knows he will quickly be rendered irrelevant were he to resign. So, he has dared, and rightly so, for Uhuru to have him impeached, knowing that will not be a cake walk.
On the other hand, the man, who one must give it to him and his team for being very good in public relations, has turned his official Karen into an alternate State House.
The number of shameless MPs parading there all the time for handouts is nothing but a testament of how broken our political system is but also a noose with which Ruto is hanging himself with politically.
No President can watch his deputy doing these daring things and say it is okay.
Samuel Omwenga is a legal analyst and political commentator
