Demonstrator during anti-tax protests in Nairobi on June 20, 2024.
This is a December 12, 1963, moment. A moment of mementous change and state formation. Kenya’s tribal, rent seeking political culture, based on a narrow group of tribal elites plundering the public coffers and cornering the country’s best opportunities for themselves, their families, relatives and cronies, has for all intents and purposes been deposed.
President Ruto was merely the tone-deaf cook who was in the kitchen when it caught fire, the guy who seriously believed that a kakistocracy can balance the budget, that our doctors and engineers are content with menial jobs abroad and that a call centre in second hand heels and lipstick covering half the face (ICT Hub) is our most brilliant contribution to the post-web, AI-driven digital world of today.
The Kenyan state as now constituted – which delivered an army that was slaughtered by rag-tag militia at El Ade, a police force whose snipers shoot children in the head, an economy which collects more taxes than any other in East Africa but runs museum piece trains, a bureaucracy that can’t explain in simple terms how it spent Sh6 trillion debt (if you go by Jimmy Wanjigi’s maths) and a dishonest society stuck in cults and witchcraft – is toast. The young generation, the majority, said it doesn’t want any part of that, fix it or it will.
Outside of those bending over the feeding trough, no one is proud of our political culture; it does not produce honesty, patriotism and an attitude of sacrifice, only longer snouts. There is no continuity, no values, no training, no organised succession; a succeeding regime does not take over the good ideas of the previous, the country is a patchwork of five-year or, at best, 10-year spurts of mainly shots in the dark. Not even the 2010 Constitution could cure this blood-sucking vampiric edifice.
Fairer future
On June 25, Gen Zs gave us an opportunity to clean the slate and draw a better, cleaner, fairer future for our children. President Ruto can try and feed more blood to the damaged vampire in the hope of keeping it alive and, hopefully, curing whatever infected it. Or he can grab the opportunity, rally the country and together we can devise a more effective, fairer, stable system. Anyone dreaming of 2027 is setting themselves up for heartbreak. If you interact with Gen Zs you know that even if they don’t come out to the streets, their minds are already made up: they will vote, all the folks in office will go home and the Matiang’is, Okiya Omatatas, Sifunas and Babu Owinos will take power.
To his credit, Mr Ruto is bold and has clear thinking. But his feet are stuck in the glue of his Moist tutelage. He might try to preserve the current beast and ride it to a totalitarian future, he will not succeed. The pressure will come from inside, but also from the outside: The 56th session of the UN Human Rights Council is taking place in Geneva, activists will be trying to make a scene there. Kenya Kwanza’s staunchest supporters are facing tight elections in the west, the last thing they want is baggage. Besides, they don’t want to earn the wrath and hatred of the Kenyan population, they are always playing politics to look good. And a government without the support of the population is always on a timer and time will run out.
Media grandees
The President when he faced the three media grandees – Mr Linus Kaikai, Joe Ageyo and Eric Latif – who gave him a thorough work out, said one of his biggest problems is that his government did not communicate well. Mohamed Welihye, the banker and social media pundit, often observes that the mistake Mr Ruto made was to take his campaign to government. A campaign communications team pummels, confuses, intimidates and demoralises the opposition, on top of selling the candidate. The team has continued to sell the candidate and treat the country as the opposition. The result is widespread resistance and resentment.
Mr Ruto came across as a man who is not given to being challenged or told what to do. Those kinds of bosses are difficult to advise, subordinates play safe and hide information. And he is rarely more than a few feet from a live mike. When you are over-exposed and over-reported, people tune out, stop listening (familiarity breeds contempt) and you accumulate a large stock of inevitable contradictions and errors which are subsequently exploited.
But he is right: out of ignorance or contempt, the government has stopped selling its policies. I heard about Mr Ruto’s ambition to balance the budget in about four years during the interview. And I heard today, the real target and intent of the fallen Land Bill – it is not your grandfather’s ancestral quarter, it is the large holdings in Nairobi and its environments which enjoy city services without paying a dime. If Mr Ruto had taken the time to explain to the country in an effective manner what he was doing and why, the fight would not have been about taxes, it would have been about corruption and impunity, and that is an easier fight.
So, Kenya will either re-invent itself today or in 2027 at the latest. The bloody die is cast.
Mr Mathiu, a media consultant at Steward-Africa, is a former Editor-in-Chief of Nation Media Group. [email protected].
