The reckoning: Ruto's fury, Uhuru's gamble and Gen Z's political awakening

It is no wonder that President William Ruto has been going berserk in his condemnation of his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta. How could his former bosom pal do this to him? He’s crying about the betrayal all over, like a weeping and discarded lover. He is outraged, apoplectic, seething and maddened, as he disbelievingly laments this perfidy and faithlessness. 

As well he might. These two had a plan, and it more or less worked for 14 years. But they anticipated neither the inconvenient death of Raila Odinga – the man they are all now lionising in an outpouring of phoney grief and hypocrisy – nor the phenomenal rise of Edwin Sifuna and his cohort of young Kenyans. 

Suddenly, the plan has had to change. Despite the complicated shared history that has so far bonded Ruto and Uhuru, it has suddenly become every man for himself.

Ruto has become a deadweight and must be left to pursue his failing one-man cause. Uhuru will modify his plans by the day and use his extreme wealth to promote whomever he thinks can best protect his and his family’s unscrupulous past. Neither of them has the essential foundational future of the country in mind. 

These are the two most dangerous men in Kenya.

They were an unlikely pairing from the start. Uhuru was born into an upper-class home, the son of the country’s first president. He grew up having everything he wanted – high society, luxury homes, foreign travel, clothes, consumer goods, cars and the best education money could buy.

Like many young people who are over-indulged, he also over-indulged. He has a well-documented personal history with alcohol and, from an early age was a regular customer, often inebriated, at Nairobi watering-holes.

Ruto, by contrast, claims to have come up the hard way, to have had no shoes until he was 15 and to have sold peanuts and chickens at the roadside to support his family.

This is an unlikely story. Ruto is a habitual liar, a trait the two of them share, with Uhuru well-known among his friends for being the master of doublespeak, bluff and dissimulation.

Records show that Ruto’s father expanded from small-scale to large-scale farming early on in Ruto’s life, supplying large quantities of maize to the National Cereals & Produce Board and milk every day to the Kenya Co-operative Creameries. He served as chairman of the Uasin Gishu chapter of the Kenya Farmers Association from 1977 to 1984, when Ruto would have been aged 11 to aged 18.

So, the hardship story looks a bit thin, but whatever the case, Mr Daniel Cheruiyot’s son by his mid-20s had become an aggressive street roughneck, at the other end of the spectrum from the soft, loose-living, Kenyatta boy.

Ruto thus presented as an ideal candidate for the violent YK’92 organisation, which perpetrated nationwide terror as it sought to protect Kanu and prevent people voting for the opposition in the 1992 general election.

It was only much later, some years after the 2007 general election, that the lives of these two coincided spectacularly, when both appeared before the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused of crimes against humanity committed in the aftermath of that election. 

The ICC cases forged the most unlikely combination, a twist of fate that had placed two representatives of sworn enemy groups in a shared predicament.

The charges against Uhuru at the ICC included murder, deportation or forcible transfer of population, rape, persecution and ‘other inhumane acts’ via the outlawed Mungiki militia and against mainly Luos, Luhyas and Kalenjins supporting ODM. Ruto’s list of charges was for similar crimes against PNU supporters, mainly Kikuyus. 

From being mortal adversaries, the two now had every incentive to become close conspirators.

So desperate was their plight, and so determined were they to avoid conviction, that they hatched a plan of mutual protection that saw them running as the most unlikely candidates for president and running-mate in the March 2013 general election.

And their sworn reciprocity included the apparently sacred promise that Ruto would support Uhuru as president for 10 years, and Uhuru would thereafter support Ruto as president for 10 years.

This particularly suited Uhuru, as it meant he could retain enough control for 20 years while some of his younger relatives grew up and became eligible to reinstate the family name at the apex of power in 2032.

But life happens, and circumstances beyond their control have changed in unexpected ways that have now made this look impossible. Uhuru is now apparently on to his fallback plan, which is actually Plan C, and it is his recent step back from the sacred promise that has caused Ruto’s meltdown.

It might seem to some that Uhuru actually stepped back a long time ago, when he appeared to support Raila Odinga for the presidency in 2022. But he didn’t really support Raila Odinga at all. That was just part of the act.

The Uhuru-Ruto double act had initially faltered fairly early in Uhuru’s second term, when things became strained between them. For Uhuru, it was time for Plan B, which is when he began to make use of Raila, first via the ‘handshake’ deal between them and then via a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would change the face of government.

This was the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), which Uhuru schemed would create the powerful position of prime minister, a position he could hold, even as a retired president. He was reportedly excited at the prospect.

But BBI never saw the light of day. It was multiply challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, which found that Uhuru had acted unlawfully in spearheading a project that could be led only by citizens, not a sitting head of state.

The court defeat came just five months ahead of the 2022 general election due to be held in August, at the end of Uhuru’s 10-year reign. Who knows what ameliorating discussions took place between Uhuru and Ruto, who had strongly opposed BBI, but Uhuru now had to cut his losses and revive a wobbly Plan A.

‘Plan A recast’ involved Uhuru publicly pretending to support Raila in the 2022 election, while privately keeping his earlier promise to Ruto and ensuring Ruto got elected. For Uhuru, this was now the best of some pretty unattractive options on the table.

With both himself and Ruto still open to ICC prosecution should any further evidence arise – despite the fact that most of the evidentiary witnesses had either been frightened off, paid off, or offed completely – the two of them still had a lot to lose. And if they lost, some huge skeletons they had stripped of their flesh (Eurobond for one) were rattling ominously in the closet.

You never saw Ruto wailing bitterly about being betrayed when Uhuru was supposedly supporting Raila, did you? Because the idea was that Uhuru would give lip-service to promoting Raila but this would go only far enough to look convincing, not far enough to ensure a convincing Raila win.

It has always been mysterious that Uhuru declared his support for Raila in 2022 but was curiously and conspicuously absent from most of the presidential election campaign.

Paradoxically, it helped Uhuru’s machinations that he had become less popular in Kikuyuland, for several reasons. No love had ever been lost between Kikuyus and Luos, and the handshake had alienated many, not only on tribal grounds but also because the agreement transparently favoured Uhuru personally rather than addressing any national need.

His government had been accused of poor economic decisions that had resulted in higher living costs, and he had also dispensed with some Mount Kenya leaders and lawmakers allied to Ruto, which had fostered more animosity towards him. The Uhuru-Ruto collaboration had always been a delicate balancing game.

On to 2026, with Ruto rapidly becoming dramatically less popular and ever more of a dictator. Ruto had begun talking about ‘2060’ and what he hoped to see in Kenya by the time he was 90 (he is currently 59), while his lawmaker friends were hinting at legislation making it possible for Ruto to remain president beyond the statutory two five-year terms.

It was clear to Uhuru that the revisited Plan A was not going to work either. Time for Plan C.

Writing about political nicknames in these pages a few months ago, I suggested that Fred Matiang’i was being set up as a placeholder for Uhuru: “After all, the two of them have history: when Uhuru was president, Matiang’i was his enforcer. Uhuru usually presented a genial, amiable, almost bumbling, persona, and Matiang’i, the enforcer, organised the other stuff.”

And ‘other stuff’ going on was pretty bad. Between July 2021 and early 2023, some 40 bodies of people who had been tortured, strangled and tied up in bags were found in the River Yala in Siaya County.

Matiang’i was Interior Cabinet Secretary for some of this time. He has vehemently denied any personal or ministerial responsibility for the deaths. Ruto as deputy president was also sitting in the National Security Council.

Uhuru is indeed fronting Matiang’i for the presidency, in his last-ditch effort to keep some kind of future control. Or it could be Kalonzo Musyoka, depending on how the cookie crumbles.

But er ... hello, guys, all of you in Ukombozi? Have you noticed that something organic is happening out there in the real world?

Perhaps they have, judging by their terminally glum expressions as they stand in a rather forlorn elderly and middle-aged group behind whoever among their number is giving the latest press statement about choosing a single presidential candidate in a board room.

Meanwhile, the new Equitable Party under youthful leader Sifuna claims to have registered more than six million members within two weeks of its rebirth, and the entire country is resounding to joyful cries of ‘Wantam’ (‘one term’ for Ruto) and ‘Sifuna’.

How fortunes change. Ruto is on his increasingly desperate solo run, and it must be a worrying time for Uhuru. The leaden and uncharismatic Matiang’i is low in opinion polls and has no national following. His Jubilee party gained 198 votes in the Ol Kalou by-election and is running at a dismal less-than-seven per cent in the polls.

Kalonzo might have been doing a little better, but he is also struggling. His Wiper party is likewise polling less than seven per cent nationally.

And I’d like to address Kalonzo: “As my fellow septuagenarian and a man who has lived overall a decent life, what are you doing hanging out with these characters?

“You have held positions at every senior level in this country except the topmost. You have been vice-president, an honour accorded only 12 people in all (including deputy presidents). That’s a one-in-five-million, or 0.00002 per cent, chance.

“You have had it all. You are nearly 73 and by next August will be well older than both Jomo Kenyatta and Mwai Kibaki when they became president. The entire country is looking for a youthful generation to lead us to a new, better future.

“Please have a rethink. You are never going to be president. Do the honourable thing, put your support where it matters and earn your rightful place in Kenya’s history as a great achiever and a fine man who made the right decision.”

We cannot leave out the wild card, Rigathi Gachagua, who has made an astonishing comeback after being underhandedly impeached and thrown to the dogs. Gachagua, like all of them, definitely has his own particular strengths.

And if they all made the right decision now, I’m sure they could each negotiate a role that engages those strengths in a government united under the right leader.

Can you all accordingly please wake up, step out of the board room, and wholeheartedly support the idea of giving the people what they want?

The nation is going to take what it wants anyway, Upende usipende, so do yourselves a favour and make a plan. Maybe Plan Z, for GenZ. It’s the future.