Ruto need not wait six years to become the boss of Kenyans

Endorsements for a William Ruto presidency have been flowing fast and furious, six years before his scheduled coronation.

Although a mere heartbeat away from the presidency, Mr Ruto knows that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s vitals are not going to give in any time soon. Chances of succeeding the President on account of death, resignation, incapacitation, or impeachment exist only in the hallucinatory imagination of a shisha-smoking mind.

Mr Kenyatta’s place in Kenya’s history is already assured, with a special fireside seat reserved for the great strides in development he has made with the million-acre irrigation scheme, the laptops for primary school pupils, land-banking in Kibera and the Standard Gauge Railway.

President Kenyatta is going to win the 2017 election hands down – in the first round – leaving only the matter of what do about his deputy in abeyance.

Few jobs have been as unrewarding for the Kenyan politician like being Number Two. Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Joseph Zuzarte Murumbi, Josephat Njuguna Karanja, George Musengi Saitoti, Arthur Moody Awori and Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka all deputised the boss without ever getting to taste real power. Mr Daniel arap Moi and Mr Mwai Kibaki are the exceptions to the rule, and Mr Ruto ought to be in their column, too.

Mr Ruto has shown up for duty more than any other president’s principal assistant -- dishing out insults like unsalted porridge and cultivating an enviable reputation as administration’s bone-breaker and political bruiser.

When negotiations get sticky, whether it is with striking teachers or belligerent opposition people demanding the disbanding of the electoral commission, you send in Mr Ruto. Even Mr Raila Odinga knew that if he needed to negotiate with Mr Kibaki for power-sharing, only Mr Ruto could stare down the other side.

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have enough numbers between them to run the country beyond Vision 2030. The rest of the population can fatten on crumbs as they bulk their numbers to a significant statistic deserving of national notice. Politics is a game of numbers; and those who do not have numbers can go sit on a pin.

The President has total confidence in Mr Ruto, having left him in charge of the country for a full 24 hours when he had to attend that status conference at the International Criminal Court.

A man of Mr Ruto’s talents naturally attracts envy, expressed in unfounded accusations about changing his ancestry and surname to Singh, building a swanky hotel on land that belongs to a public primary school, and having a keen interest in land. Still, these accusations are like water off a duck’s back for the former chicken merchant whose business acumen is still spoken of with awe at the Leseru Railway Station.

Chickens have a special place in describing the political pedigree of Mr Ruto. He is nobody’s political broiler, but rather an indigenous variety of kuku kienyeji that scurries the dirt for its daily meal and fights for its space unto the death. Broilers, like Mr Kenyatta, are easy to baste, manipulate and confuse using a variety of spices but not the hustler-in-chief. His motto is to keep hustling or die trying.

With the talents so far revealed to the Kenyan public, it is puzzling that Mr Ruto would want to wait in the wings for another six years. It is gratifying that some politicians who had been mouthing inanities to the effect that he will never be president are now falling over themselves to name sports stadium after him.

With his gift of the gab, Mr Ruto could be selling ice to eskimos and sand to the Omani Arabs, thereby transforming Kenya into a second-world nation.

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