Makau Mutua: Did Ruto flip, and then flop?

The most important political event in Kenya the past three years has been the 2018 Handshake between Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM’s Raila Odinga. It’s not BBI, or even Covid-19.

The country’s life has revolved around the Handshake. Take it, or leave it. That’s why after the Handshake, DP William Ruto and his acolytes declared war on Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga. Since then, Mr Ruto and his brigand – like Kamba prepubescent boys – have been running through the village hollering that the circumciser’s knife has been unsheathed. Last week, however, after a long meeting between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto at State House, the Tangatanga guns abruptly fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Question – why?

Let me peel your eyes. Like every good political strategist, Mr Ruto has an arsenal of attack dogs. They bark and bite on cue. In fact, Mr Ruto has left nary a doubt about his kamikaze brigade. If you want to know what Mr Ruto is thinking, or scheming, you need look no further than the Twitter accounts of Senator Kipchumba Murkomen, or Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi.

Signature collection

Not so much blogger Dennis Itumbi, the whisperer who’s more of an agent provocateur. As soon as the State House parley between Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta ended, the twitter accounts of these three somersaulted. Mr Kenyatta instantly became a wise sage whereas in the past he was the Lucifer-like devil incarnate.

There’s no doubt Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta met to argue over the launch of the BBI referendum signature collection push scheduled the following day. That launch was cancelled immediately the meeting concluded. Mr Ruto’s ecstatic keyboard warriors thought he had stopped “reggae”. This last Wednesday, however, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga launched the signature collection. Mr Ruto was either not invited, or he simply kept away.

The launch indicates Mr Kenyatta didn’t fully cave in to Mr Ruto’s demands to revise, or abandon, the BBI project. That’s why Mr Ruto’s keyboard warriors have gone back to wielding digital machetes against the BBI. A cunning Mr Ruto, however, has become a BBI watermelon – he’s neither for, nor against, BBI.

The handshake and BBI have been cruel vices around Mr Ruto’s neck. The man from Sugoi was smoothly jogging to State House until Mr Odinga kneecapped him. Since then, Mr Ruto has been gasping for oxygen.

At one point, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto couldn’t bear to look at each other. Au contraire, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga have been having the times of their lives, judging by their mirth. Mr Ruto had hoped to return Mr Kenyatta to his “factory” settings. Mr Kenyatta appears to have given Mr Ruto the middle finger. The revisions made to BBI have put Mr Ruto in a catch-22. They deny him a good argument to claim exclusion, but aren’t everything he demanded.

So has Mr Ruto flipped, and then flopped? It’s clear to everyone with a brain that Mr Ruto’s opposition to BBI wasn’t on principle. Mr Ruto has never been a constitutional reformer, although he’s benefited from all the reforms he opposed. His beef was with the marriage between Mr Odinga and Mr Kenyatta. Period – end of story. He couldn’t care less about what’s in BBI. All he wants is power. Raw power. If there’s a truce between Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, it’s because either Mr Kenyatta ate humble pie and returned to Mr Ruto’s fold, or Mr Ruto sees no viable opposition path forward and has succumbed to BBI. In that case, Mr Ruto would’ve eaten humble pie.

So, why would Mr Ruto collapse in public humiliation after brandishing all manner of artillery at Mr Kenyatta? It’s not lost on anyone that Mr Ruto – for all his bravado and braggadocio – has refused to openly go mano-a-mano with Mr Kenyatta. The closest he came was at the unveiling of BBI at Bomas when he bucked his boss and called for revisions to the report.

He had been invited to the lunch, but instead of eating from his own plate, he decided to eat both Mr Kenyatta’s and Mr Odinga’s lunches. Improbably, he cast himself as the reformer and the other two as the anti-reformers. In my view, he landed a solid and painful punch on the Handshake pair.

Methinks Mr Ruto doesn’t want to exhaust his war chest on a costly referendum. His money is dwindling when he needs to splash it for the 2022 campaigns. As they say in poker, you must “know when to hold ‘em, and when to fold ‘em”. Mr Ruto knows how votes are counted in Kenya.

In that case, he may have concluded that there’s no way the State will lose the BBI referendum. So, why play a Don Quixote? Not to mention that an all-out war against Mr Kenyatta may alienate the Kikuyu whom he desperately needs to snag State House? Get your popcorn and find a TV couch.

@makaumutua.