Please enable JavaScript to read this content.
When at the height of the Mau restoration clamour, Raila stood by President Kabaki's directive; the rest of the country like today urged Raila on and termed him a champion, a national hero. In fact like today, there were more of such praises from central Kenya than any other part of the country.
Today we are at the same political junction; this time round the main character is Deputy President William Samoei Ruto. He is eloquent, a man with the gift of the gab and a powerful none verbal cue in his hand to much. He can eloquently navigate himself past Lucifer's Hades were he, Lucifer to claim him from God on past crimes or allegations.
At a personal level, he would stand with President Uhuru's directive, but at the political pitch he knows as much as the poor know that in Kenya all politics is a game and anything that say about national interest doesn’t matter and its just a bag of dust they sprinkle on their own people's eyes.
In Kenya, political loyalty doesn't care about corruption, integrity and all those ‘mambo jumbo’ jargon in chapter six of the constitution. Trust me if David Chirchir and Felix Kosgei were to contest a seat pitting either of them with William Ruto today, Bill would be shown a clean pair of heels by either of the two (watch this space, the two will be elected leaders in 2017!)
To the local villagers, the two are now heroes as they believe the two are victims of political cleansing that they alleged Kibaki had started in 2002.
While Raila was busy planting trees and smiling to the international cameras, Ruto's brigade propped by their Mount Kenya buddies were traversing the valleys and slopes of the great Rift spreading the gospel of: 'huyu jamaa anamaliza watu wetu '(this man is finishing our people) that culminated into a well-choreographed artificial 'harambee' in a Nairobi hotel ( artificial in that no money ever reached the Mau evictees) and tea taking in the tents along the Mau Roads, to save the innocent people that have been brutally removed from their 'farms' by Raila.
It worked that by the time the International Criminal Court devils came into the mix, Raila's fate had been sealed. He finally lost it in the ballot in 2013 as far as the Rift valley votes were cast.
William Ruto is today staring at the same political abyss his former boss fell into. How he is going to wriggle out of this is a matter of conjecture but, the script is all too familiar. With Gideon Moi's political shadow looming behind him, we are in for interesting times as we cruise towards 2017 in Rift valley.