Angry Ruto walks out on Uhuru – Weekly Citizen

What goes around always comes round, or so the old adage goes. For a long time now, William Ruto has assumed the presidency in 2022 to be his for the taking; that with backing of his boss, Uhuru Kenyatta, State House would be his new residence when Uhuru exits.
And to his retinue of animated cheerleaders, the presidency was theirs to lose. But alas, this could not be the case anymore, or so it appears! To the bare minimum that is, matter-of-factly.
The spiraling dip in the DP’s fortunes now mirrors misplaced self entitlement and false hopes. Until the March 9 2018 handshake bringing together Uhuru and Raila Odinga, Ruto was a powerhouse unto himself.
Before then, Ruto would hog the headlines issuing ‘delegated’ executive decrees left, right and centre, ostensibly at the president’s behest. A wily politician of enviable scheming, the DP seems to have mastered the art of killing two birds with one stone; using ‘development’ mission to market his 2022 presidential bid both rolled up into one.
With the handshake, however, things appear to have changed forever. Successive deeds and pronouncements by Uhuru – either directly or through proxy – have only helped pile on Ruto and his supporters, pressure of unprecedented proportions.

Uhuru

The DP’s troubles are a culmination of a cocktail of surprises initiated by the president and his inner circle, all pointing at shifting ground to his disadvantage. When all is said and done, the elephant in the room is the handshake; its unborn baby – Building Bridges Initiative – prematurely sending shivers all round.
Perhaps, as a tell tale sign that it could be all gloom for Ruto, the DP was totally kept in the dark on the Uhuru-Raila truce much to the consternation of Ruto, his loyalists and the nation at large.
Even with the many telling political undertones unwittingly seeming to escape his attention, the DP can no longer afford to pretend all is well. He simply cannot go on like this. Things are just not looking good, no matter how brave the face Ruto puts on.
“We can’t live in denial forever, we just have to agree to pick up the pieces and move on,” says a close confidant of the DP who preferred to remain nameless for fear of crossing some unnamed people’s path, perhaps summing up Ruto’s situation.
The DP’s conspicuous absence at numerous presidential functions that he could, ordinarily, dare not miss out show that Ruto has read the writing on the wall.

Raila and Uhuru

That the DP has chosen to boycott Uhuru’s highly publicised events tells of an increasingly defiant lieutenant finally keen on charting his own cause. During the passing out parade of Kenya Defence Forces recruits on September 11 2019 at the Recruits Training Centre in Eldoret presided over by the president, Ruto’s conspicuous absence got tongues wagging.
This would continue on October 16 when Uhuru officiated the commissioning of multibillion-shilling infrastructure projects in Mlolongo Expressway – Syokimau, Ongata Rongai and Suswa SGR.
This familiar script would come into play last week on October 18, during the official launch of the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone, a highly publicised presidential event that Ruto also gave a wide berth.
Ruto in April year skipped the historic flagging off of Kenya’s first consignment of crude oil export in Mombasa, at the function presided over by Uhuru.
Elsewhere later in July during the launch of the multibillion-shilling Lake Turkana wind project, Uhuru lit the social media when he cheekily scribbled and passed on a mystery note to Baringo senator Gideon Moi as Ruto watched in dismay.
Being one of Ruto’s foremost political rivals, the DP seemed not to take lightly the camaraderie between the two famous alumni of St Mary’s, and more especially, the mystique surrounding the note’s content.
With Ruto’s boycotts taking shape, it will not come as a surprise if he gives the impending opening of the Kisumu Port a wide berth.

Incidentally, it was during the Mlolongo, SGR and Dongo Kundu events that BBI took centrestage, with Ruto receiving the beating from none other than his boss – Uhuru – at least indirectly. Addressing the gathering in Mlolongo and Ongata Rongai, Uhuru declared nothing shall stop BBI, which he said he and “my brother Raila” shall soon be coming with at the grassroots.
Not going without notice was the fact that the “brother” kept off the function with some confirming that the bromance between Uhuru and Raila is fading. It is imperative to note that during the 2017 presidential debate that Uhuru boycotted, Raila said that the SGR would end at someone’s farm in Naivasha. Indeed, the SGR has ended in Kenyatta family’s land in Naivasha much to the chagrin of people of Nyanza and Western Kenya who had hoped SGR would go all the way to Kisumu and Malaba onward to Uganda.
It was at this function where a lonely Uhuru in a veiled attack on his principal assistant, Uhuru laughed off those who thought BBI was an avenue for him to stay in power. Instead, the president asserted BBI was tailored towards ending murky election cycles in the country.
The winner-takes-all presidential system has variously been cited for the political unrest that has characterised past successive presidential polls, with the infamous 2007 elections panning out to be the worst ever. But some Kenyans have dismissed the BBI supposed solution to this electoral disputes as a product of simple minds looking for easy way out and say in the end this will be the hard way as then it will kill transparency in country and usher in era of runaway corruption being as it that there will be no opposition to check the government. As it is, there are signs to that with Raila whom Kenyans used to count on to expose misdeeds in government totally gagged with a now permanently full mouth courtesy of the handshake.
In the proposed new political dispensation, there will be created position of prime minister, two deputy prime minister positions and two deputy presidents.
Besides skipping presidential events lately, Ruto has on numerous occasions been a subject of tongue lashing from Uhuru, most notable being during this year’s Mzee Jomo Kenyatta anniversary on August 22 at the Holy Family Basilica in Nairobi.

Former PM Raila Odinga and Former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka during the 2017 politial campaigns.

Out of the blue, Uhuru took a swipe at Ruto and his Tangatanga brigade for their dynasties versus hustler mantra, an inference the DP has perfected over years to throw mud at Raila, whose father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga deputised Uhuru’s father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta – as Kenya’s first vice president.
Earlier towards the end of July, Uhuru bypassed the presidential pavilion where his deputy was waiting to receive him, instead choosing to leave the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport through the ordinary passenger terminals upon arriving from Zambia.
Discarding protocol, Uhuru headed straight to the international passenger terminals catching an unbelieving Ruto unawares.
Elsewhere, Ruto had to eat a humble pie when his attempts to cajole the president into summoning Jubilee’s parliamentary group meeting recently failed. Instead, Uhuru turned to Raila and Kalonzo Musyoka to see through parliament his administration’s push to raise the borrowing ceiling to an unmanagable Sh9 trillion.
Coming at the height of the battle for the control of the ruling party in parliament, the new turn of events only helped further underlie the deteriorating ties between the president and his deputy, as Ruto found himself in yet another awkward position.
While sounding out Raila, Uhuru is said to have told the opposition chief that Ruto was blackmailing him. Now said to have had enough of humiliating experiences from his boss, the DP is said to have elected to dispense with Kenyatta’s backing as he charts his own cause and destiny.
If anything, say sources at Harambee House Annex, Ruto strongly believes Uhuru could turn out to be a liability to his quest for the presidency given Jubilee’s poor track record, headlined by the Uhuru administration’s failure to fulfill its election campaign promises.