There is no doubt that something went seriously wrong with President William Ruto’s directive that appeared to target foreigners doing small-scale business in Kenya.
Granted, the President did not say that all foreigners doing small-scale businesses in Kenya must leave the country. But in a country whose public communications are noisier than the biblical Tower of Babel, the President’s directive has quickly been twisted into an eviction notice for foreigners.
And in Kenya, there is always a bigger story behind eviction notices, which, like many other aspects of human life, are rarely apolitical.
Although the State House has since moved in to try to control the damage caused by this obvious public communications blunder, it will take more than a flurry of press releases to repair the damage. In fact, the mix of not-so-subtle apologies, corrections and clarifications has only reinforced the impression of a government chasing after its own tail.
One question begs an answer: Who advised the President to box himself into a corner like this? Whoever it was, it cannot be the sharp men and women who are well versed in the language of diplomacy, and who must have known well in advance the repercussions of such a directive.
It can only be one of the people who keep sneaking into the State House disguised as die-hard ‘tutam’ mobilisers.
It is also notable that the idea of expelling Burundian nationals from the streets was not first mentioned at the State House. Three months ago, one of the President’s lackeys in Nairobi was trending for saying, “If we find a construction site employing Burundians, we will shut it down.”
It would seem that a good number of such people have found a way of hawking such unsolicited advice at State House, and that the President, keen on securing every single vote, is becoming a soft target for manipulation.
Be that as it may, the serpentine tongue that hawked this specific piece of advice, if that is indeed what happened, must be banned from State House, and should not be allowed anywhere near the President’s ear, because he or she must have a vision narrower than the Strait of Hormuz.
The fellow either did not know or deliberately forgot to advise the President that, historically, leaders who ordered certain groups of people out of their countries rarely emerged as heroes, and that such ‘eviction notices’ have always taken on a life of their own, as the President’s directive has done.
Indeed, some terrible crimes against humanity began with a simple directive ordering particular communities or nationalities to pack up and leave for whatever reason.
For Kenya, especially in the most recent case of Burundian traders, psychologists may have to study harder to explain this sudden urge to evict people whom we initially welcomed with open arms as soon as they showed a hint of progress.
Besides, these eviction notices are beginning to sound eerily familiar. Only a week ago, the President appeared to issue another eviction notice, this time to foreigners who have been turning water into salt at Lake Magadi for the last 100 years.
Before then, several leaders had been dropping subtle eviction notices against certain communities ahead of the 2026 election. One would be forgiven for reading the eviction notice for small traders from neighbouring countries as a dress rehearsal for more domestic evictions.
If the President can wake up one morning and order a certain group of people evicted, what stops a local tribal kingpin from ‘ordering’ members of certain communities evicted tomorrow? Could it be that the reason for attempting to evict small-scale traders from Nairobi is purely political and not about trade licences?
Are the poor Burundian traders victims of the politics of numbers ahead of the 2026 poll?
Be that as it may, evictions rarely end well for the people who order them. In their eviction frenzy, people who rally people to evict others, for whatever reasons, eventually end up getting evicted themselves.
Because save for the hunters and gatherers who came before us, none of us is indigenous enough to claim absolute ownership of this country.
Mr Muchiri is a media and public communications consultant
