Dear Ruto, this is how to make the mountain vote for you again in 2027

Your excellency, word on the ground is that you are worried the mountain’s vote is slipping between your fingers. Well, today, we play the devil’s advocate and offer free advice on how to win back Mount Kenya.

Number one: Flirt with Uhuru. I do not know why anyone in their right mind would advise you to mess with your predecessor. Did they not know the law of power about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer? Have they forgotten too quickly how Mt Kenya can, like a chicken whose chick is threatened by a hawk, rally around its own.

You must rise from the noise and racket around Uhuru’s right to speak politics, and spectacularly, like the benevolent dictator, dramatically call off the attack dogs that you have unleashed on Uhuru; call a press conference and loudly pretend to rebuke the fellows for showing disrespect for Uhuru, condemn them publicly ‘in the strongest terms possible…’

Number two: Whatever happens, you must ensure that Uhuru and your former deputy, Riggy G, do not work from the same script. Indeed, the only reason that has so far prevented the entire mountain from walking out on you is Uhuru and his thinly veiled mistrust of your former deputy. For reasons that are partly in the public domain and others known only to Uhuru and Riggy G, these two have split the mountain. Now all you need to do is deepen this sense of mistrust between these two.

Which brings us to the third way: instead of denying perceived sins against Uhuru and his family, you need to confess them; you need to own up, and do this in a spectacular manner, not just making unannounced trips to Gatundu, as you did in December 2024.

You need to stage a sit-down with the elders from the mountain, and quickly stage a spectacular reconciliation ceremony of some sort with Uhuru before your political nemesis, like the biblical tale of the younger brother who outwitted his elder and secured the father’s blessing first, gets to Uhuru first.

Number four way back to the mountain is, and has always been, through their stomachs.

By now, we all know you are not a poor man. Unlike in 2022, when you gave everyone a run for their money, you can now give anyone a run with their money. So flood the mountain with so much money that it shall vote for you out of guilt and a sense of indebtedness.

Besides, the mountain has a deep moral code that frowns upon freebies. Even when errant boys and girls return home with handouts, tradition demands that such gifts be returned, or quietly repaid in kind by the guardians of the community.

Do not stop at hosting the mountain at State House—take State House to every village in the region. Pour even more into churches to make more Christians in the mountain feel spiritually and morally bound to return the favour.

Number five, stop sending errand boys to woo the mountain for you.

It breaks the very rules of courtship: Sending others to deliver flowers to the most sought-after girl that you are trying to win over is risky—the same messengers can easily turn the girl against you.

So, buy yourself a heavy black trench coat, a warm scarf,a pair of gumboots, and a thick woolen cap, and go woo the girl yourself, not from the red carpet or podium, but right inside the village, deep in the cold mountainside.

Speaking of errand boys, you need to cane a few of them publicly: A good number of them, especially the noisy, boisterous ones, are increasingly making things difficult for you in the mountain. In fact, a good number of people who have changed their mind about voting for you in 2027 have done so because of some of the noisy, arrogant characters around you that have become symbols of impunity.

They may return to you boasting that they have secured support, but the truth is that many of them cannot even convince themselves that they will survive politically in 2027.

Muchiri Karanja is public communications consultant.  Email muchiri.karanja@gmail.com