The eviction of squatters from Mau Forest has exposed Agriculture Minister William Ruto as a tactless leader with no clear agenda for his people.

Before I talk about Ruto, may I say that while the motive of the evictions from Mau was good, the execution was disheartening. If the Government honestly wanted to relocate the evictees to their former homes, it should have provided transport and humanitarian assistance to help the people on transit.

But it didn’t and this led to a crisis, which invited the attention of Ruto and some MPs from Rift Valley, including Chepalungu’s Isaac Ruto, Linah Kilimo of Marakwet East and Joshua Kutuny of Chereng’any.

There were more than a dozen MPs, but I single out the three because their actions and statements during the visit were most telling. Isaac Ruto told the desolate and hungry evictees that Prime Minister Raila Odinga did not win the disputed 2007 presidential election.

Kilimo put up a performance that would have instantly won her the ‘Best Actress Award’. When she rose to speak, she did not promise any blankets or food. She informed the IDPs she doubted whether Raila won the elections.

Kutuny was prophetic. He told the shivering evictees that in 2007, he warned his colleagues that Raila was a dangerous man and even expressed doubts whether the PM was the right candidate to vote for, but they ignored him. He capped it all with a warning: The PM should not forget that they have the power to bring him down in Parliament.

The Agriculture Minister was more promising. He told the evictees that he had spoken to President Kibaki and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta about them and negotiated for help. He told Raila not to expect any support from the region in 2012.

I could be wrong, but I think it’s not wrong for me to ask if this was the kind of stuff the evictees wanted to hear at that time and whether it was moral for politicians who earn huge untaxed salaries to walk empty handed into a humanitarian crisis zone, talk crap and then leave ‘their people’ hungry and without any proper shelter.

The more than a dozen MPs came not in Volkswagen Passats, but in their big fuel guzzlers. They carried along bottled water and energy drinks (for themselves, not for the new set of IDPs), had other escort vehicles and bodyguards.

If the MPs were serious about helping ‘their people’, they should have used a portion of their fat salaries to buy food, tents medical supplies or offered any relevant humanitarian support instead of telling them about Raila.

Ruto has made his point about the PM and it is now time to shift dialogue to more important national matters. If Ruto seriously wants to be president, he should stop this obsession with Raila and begin charting his own course as a matter of urgency.

He has wasted too much political capital fighting needless wars.