Ruto, Balala to liberate us? Excuse me

Andrew Kipkemboi

Forgive me, but I felt a lump in my throat when I heard Agriculture minister William Ruto and Tourism Minister Najib Balala rouse their supporters to liberate Kenya in 2012.

Of course, every Kenyan has the right to aspire to high office and approximate the paradise that they will deliver. After all, both are young, charismatic and bristle with energy. Excuse my doubts, but for far too long, new beginnings have become false dawns.

Unfortunately for far too long, politicians have depicted the people as passive victims rather than masters of their own destiny. Most Kenyans are trapped in a horrific cycle of deceit, trickery and violence. Actually, life in most households is a glimpse into hell.

Amidst all the treachery that is our politics, across the land are harrowing tales of Kenyans facing up to life’s challenges and getting by.

Like all politicians, both Ruto and Balala know that for citizens facing destitution, hope, even if false, is readily clutched at. The people look for inspiration where it can be found. And therefore Ruto was keen to cunningly allude to the break up of Kanu before the 2002 election and paint it as the old guard cheating the youth of a deserved win. This lends credence to the rumour that former Kanuists were re-grouping for an assault on power in 2012.

The perverse nature of politicians is to always cast their perceived enemies as the cause of the troubles facing Kenya.

Yet it is true that citizens unwittingly prop up inept and corrupt rulers.

Ideally, every day presents a leader with the opportunity to choose a place in history. The people harbour vain hopes that tomorrow is better than today.

So after a hate-filled week, when a storm of abuse raged over the manner of evictions from the country’s main water tower, it is no bad thing for the ministers to know they cannot take the people for granted anymore.

Opportunists

Or in what context should Ruto’s claim that the old guard had pulled a fast one on them in 2002 be viewed? Like many, Ruto of course is perturbed that the rebirth embodied in President Kibaki’s 2002 Rainbow Coalition has morphed into a calamitous status quo— that painful, inflexible stubbornness of the ruling class since independence.

In the same vein, should Ruto/Balala be viewed as mean opportunists who benefited from the soured relations and the eventual imbroglio that led to the collapse of Narc?

By no means, Ruto and Balala have had their day in the sun.

What use therefore to Wanjiku is the unity being touted by the two and the "youthful" leaders if it is one motivated by the common distaste of the man they idolised not long ago. The your-enemy-is-my-enemy, therefore we are friends theory.

It is not regicidal politicians’ yearning to kill their king.

Nor is it the politicians hectoring the people to vote for change that they can believe in.

It is whether the leaders too, can believe in that change they feel hobbled to deliver now that they are in Government. Do we topple the Prime Minister just because of a Government directive?

Should we burn the haystack just to look for the needle?

Ruto and Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s rivalry has been detrimental to national politics not least, to their party, ODM.

Evidently, the wheels came off the bus a long time ago and it was just a matter of time before it crashed. The attritional contest has gone on despite the imminent evictions from the Mau Forest rather than because of it.

For a while, Ruto was astonishingly quiet over the Mau Forest reclamation tempting me to put him on a pedestal.

Most of the protestations were done by the loudmouthed MPs who often put their feet in their mouth. In Ruto, I saw a politician who had come of age. But alas, Ruto, red in tooth and claw, would fight another day.

But for whom is the fight?

The bigger picture about the Mau Forest is that the long -term interests of the community are grinding against the short-term interests of a few politicians, land grabs and land lords.

Ridicule

For thumbing their nose at the Prime Minister, the two and the others may be forgiven. But it is perturbingly unforgivable that the duo tries to ridicule the people they want to lead. In fact, President Kibaki won the fair vote in 2002. That is not in dispute. The two might want us to buy the idea that it is time for the new generation, but they can do it better.

Again, they may have mistaken the tide and thought they were swimming with the currents, but then get swallowed in the raging tide.

The writer is Foreign News Editor at The Standard

akipkemboi@standardmedia.co.ke