By C A Luanda Magere
I am going to be William Ruto’s advisor this once, then I return to my role as Baba’s left hand man!
Dear Chicken Seller Emeritus,
You must resign from government! Ok, that was too fast, let me start from the beginning.
From March 2013 to October 2017, you and “ndugu yangu Uhuru Kenyatta” appeared everywhere together. Practically every function! Small or big. If Uhuru wanted to go check on his trees in Gatundu, you would tag along like a tail. The jury is still out on whether you followed him to the washrooms too, seeing as the man takes very unCatholic drinks, and is a frequent visitor to the small rooms. Some say you were obsessed with following the President around so that he wouldn’t find time to engage with folks with unRuto ideologies. I don’t know.
But you must resign from government!
Anyway, after the October 2017 sham election, you had not been seen together in public, except when seeing him off at the airport on his foreign trips, until the Matiba funeral service at All Saints Cathedral. Let me not beat about the bush. You should have avoided the service! Those of us with a deep understanding of security and protocol matters immediately realised something: Your arrival threw presidential security into a spin because they were not expecting you! You arrived after the president (in some countries, such a massive protocol hitch would get you fired on the spot) because his team had not informed you of his program. You actually gatecrashed the function! When you walked in, the handshake between you the President was as cold as ice. Casual and minus eye contact. It was repeated later when you invited him to speak. He grabbed your hand as he passed you on the way to the microphone, like NGO people greet the hands of villagers lining up for flood-relief blankets in my village. He didn’t even bother to thank “ndugu yangu William” when he spoke, like he did in all the preceeding five years! In a way, they assumed the function was an aristocratic thing out of your depth.
You surely must resign from serikali.
Next day in Muranga, the message was clear. By the way, if you left Kakamega to Muranga by helicopter, in this weather, stop that habit! You are giving people ideas! Anyway, you clearly were desperate to get there because Tinga would be there and would steal the limelight (by the way, TV cameras captured that moment you nudged Governor Wa Iria to go stop any more Tinga words “for the interest of time”). But two things were said, among many. Tinga said “we are no interested in 2022” and Kamwana said “hata watu pande yangu wanatuchimba chini chini”. They were talking about you! It is interesting, everyone knows the system has no more use for you, except YOU. You are like that man whose wife is sleeping with the shamba boy, and everyone in the village knows, except the man!
You must resign from government!
In the history of Kenya, every single Vice President has suffered untold humiliation. From Jaramogi to Kalonzo. Some were slapped like drums on the highway. Some had to watch government machinery get deployed to help someone else become President as they served. The only serving VP to ever succeed the President was Moi, and that took a massive stroke of luck, and death! If you imagine you are going to run a campaign against the system while serving as DP, then you are more naive than a chicken and should be sold by the roadside, to help create the next chicken billionaire! Sorry, I couldn’t avoid that one! If the system has chosen to betray you, they are actually happy when you stay on as DP! It makes their work easier. State guards, state resources, state structures…the works. As long as you continue serving as DP, you are under state control and can’t even speak up about your own betrayal.
The people who control power have decided you are not the one. To fight them for your space, your only chance is to leave government and run a poor people’s revolution. You will not stay in government and criticise the “children of privilege” while your boss is one, his handshake partner is another, and their guns supplier is a third. Your campaign can only be effective outside sirikal. You must fashion 2022 as the liberation of Kenya, by popular revolt, from the rich Lords of Impunity. You see you allowed the disenfranchisement of Kenyans to become policy, where votes don’t count, as long as the IEBC Chair declares the system man the winner. No matter what numbers you think you can raise, it won’t matter, because the dynasties will have the IEBC chair declare their winner! In short, your path to State House is NOT through the ballot. And the longer you stay on as DP, the slimmer your chances of leading a popular revolt get.
But there is a problem. The system allowed you to pick something here, something there, something everywhere! You don’t know it yet, but that is why your betrayal became so easy! The day you resign and start speaking the language of revolt, you will be hauled to court and be charged with 700 counts of theft and corruption. I guarantee you, the files are on someone’s desk just waiting (remember how the President recently consolidated his arrest and prosecutorial powers by fixing his people there?). Which basically means my advice may mean nothing really. You won’t leave government, and you won’t be allowed to be President. I think you should start singing Paulo na Sila waliombaaaa….
Oh, about that small matter of “lazima watalipa deni”, I have read Raila Odinga’s Flame of Freedom and Koffi Annan’s Interventions. They both narrate how you came to the mediation meetings every morning complaining bitterly how the police were shooting too many people in the RV. The media and NIS may have given prominence to attacks on Kikuyus by Kalenjins, but it is fair to say the police largely had the situation under control and the war was going to be contained even without the accord. And given 15 full years after that, it is silly to assume the Rift Valley Kikuyu have been sitting around waiting for another session to be used as target practice. The ammunition that will respond to those arrows will make these current rains seem like a rehearsal.
My advice is, resign from government, go look for Raila Odinga and drag him out of government, go look for Hassan Joho too, then together, bring the house down in a massive crash! Any other way, you will be watching State House on TV the way househelps watch Ramsey Noah all day in those Nigerian witchcraft movies!
For more of such real advice, your people know how to reach me, and I cannot confirm or deny that a few million shillings my way will make me tell your story nicely, like white Kano cotton!
Erowa.
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