President William Ruto removed the traps Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua assured Kenyans were placed around state house to make sure former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Raila Odinga does not step into the compound.
It was wishful thinking, the only question is, did Gachagua know at the time this was just a wish, or did he actually believe it?
The manner in which things have developed in Kenya is third place to the leader of this category globally, US Vice President Kamala Harris whose fortunes have exploded overnight and have positioned her to grab the presidency in hand and hers to lose now.
While Kamala, as she is popularly now being referred to among her supporters and admirers, has all but locked up the US presidency barring something extraordinary, Gachagua cannot say the same thing about his future to succeed his boss.
When the man who prides himself as being the kingpin and fighter for Mt Kenya rights said the other day that he is satisfied with Ruto’s bold move to remake the Cabinet, one could not but raise eyebrows. When the Moi era DP said he got “everything” he wanted in the new Cabinet, well, how else can one put it other than to say that just can’t be the case. Not going by Gachagua’s strongly held belief, Ruto disagrees that Kenya Kwanza is like a company owned by the President’s community and those from Mt Kenya.
It is a belief that was to soon come face to face with reality and that reality was Gen Z.
Gachagua clearly never saw this coming when he spoke openly and forcefully that Ruto had no choice but to give him what was his and Mt Kenya’s or see fire.
Ruto called Gachagua’s bluff and just as Ruto found himself toothless when the man he was joined with at the hip in 2013 got enough of him a few years later and promptly moved to sideline him, Gachagua has equally found himself toothless.
What has surprised many, is how fast the relationship between Ruto and Gachagua unravelled. To be sure, it was inevitable that their honeymoon would come to an end and thereafter, Gachagua was to take ordinary abuse from State House minders and perhaps stagger, all beaten up and exhausted to 2027, but that is now on a different trajectory.
Gachagua is doing the right thing and that is, lying low as an envelope. This is what his comical assertion that he is satisfied with Ruto’s new Cabinet was meant to convey. One would be foolish to think Gachagua is not on overdrive trying to figure out how to manoeuvre himself around all the mines ahead to survive as Deputy President through 2027.
Meanwhile, Ruto is only getting started in charting the country on a different direction courtesy of Gen Z, by nominating Dorcas Oduor for the position of attorney general. Ruto is strongly signalling that he is not just appeasing Raila.
This nomination and others from ODM are simply meant to say Ruto wants to correct historical injustices and wrongs. It can’t be done overnight, but if the desire is there and the heart is there, and the will is there, then just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, by the time Ruto is done, he would have assured himself a second term and if he plays his cards right, he can actually become the first president in Kenya to transform the country, unlike anything we have experienced.
To this end, Ruto must now take the knife and conduct medical surgery on the bloated government. Starting with commissioning an audit to identify and eliminate waste and people in useless positions that are just a means to milk the government with nothing in return.
Next, and this may be what does it, Ruto must quickly move to initiate a referendum to close gaping holes in the current Constitution, reduce bloated government and provide better tools to combat corruption more effectively.
