Optics: Why Ruto looks tell of a desperate politician

President William Ruto has taken on a worrying look of late – sweating profusely, eyes wild and blazing, teeth bared in a rictus smile, absolutely furious, panicking and shouting, and with no apparent control of what comes out of his mouth. Things fall apart, and this is the look and sound of a desperate man. And optics matter.

As his carefully constructed grand-larceny schemes continue to unravel and his support shrivels, his already shaky sense of duty and bond to this nation, to its rules and regulations, and to its people, is vanishing completely.

When Ruto took the oath of presidential office, he was not simply confirming the fact that, yes, he had managed to swing that election. The oath he took included the promise to “protect and uphold the sovereignty, integrity and dignity of the people of Kenya”, all in the wider context of his duty “to respect, uphold, and safeguard the Constitution of Kenya and serve the people with justice and diligence”.

So, apart from his flagrant dereliction of this duty in every other respect, was Ruto protecting our dignity when he allowed a foreigner to casually ridicule and dismiss our laws and our courts, and to threaten communities’ rights to defend themselves?

Nigerian Aliko Dangote, addressing a press conference on his and pal Ruto’s current plans to build an oil refinery in Lamu, acknowledged that judge Jane Onyango had ordered that construction be halted and that “the status quo prevailing” be maintained in the area where the refinery is to be built, following a petition by some local residents opposing the project.

“Kenyan courts have given an order that we shouldn’t do any [building],” said Dangote. “This is normal for us in Africa... anybody who wants to cause trouble, we are ready for them.” This casually delivered arrogance sparked a shameful ripple of laughter in the assembled audience.

But then we had the response of our president, the man who had sworn to honour the courts and to protect and uphold the dignity of all Kenyans. “I want to assure you, my good brother Aliko,” he said. “Nobody is going to extort from you anything. There will be nobody who will be given anything for free because they have blackmailed the system.”

It was pretty unbelievable – or it would have been, had we not already been seasoned through Ruto’s daily violation of every moral, ethical, honourable and decent principle. Here was our president now siding with a foreigner to throw his own citizens to the dogs. 

In 1969, I spent a week as a guest in a village of Dahalo people living near Mkunumbi, at the mouth of the Tana River, right where this refinery is to be built.

My husband, then a linguistics lecturer at the University of Nairobi, was in the process of recording their language, which is part of the Cushitic group and is one of only a few languages outside southern Africa that has clicks. Until then, the grammar and construction of the Dahalo language had never been written down, a task he completed over the next few years. There are only a few hundred Dahalo people today, with fluent speakers of the language estimated at about 400. 

Does Ruto even know that a group of people called Dahalo exists? If he did, would he care anything at all about their unique language and culture, and their homeland? Would he care about reassuring them that, if ‘progress’ must come, their rights and livelihoods and families and traditions would also be protected, with due attention to their needs?

I think we all know the answer to these admittedly superfluous questions. Such people deserve nothing because they are blackmailers and extortionists.

There is a name for the act of accusing others of your own sins. It is ‘psychological projection’. And for someone suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, where the admission of fault is impossible, this is how the brain shifts the blame externally to keep the ego intact.

It is this characteristic that psychologists say makes NPD among the most difficult mental disorders to treat. The person who has it is never wrong, so can never begin to address the problem. We see it to the extreme in US president Donald Trump, and we are seeing it increasingly in our own textbook NPD case. 

At the Dangote ground-breaking event, he was visibly elated and triumphant and gloating over his fellow Kenyans. He relished accusing them of what he himself does with regularity, and was gleeful about socking them one in the eye, delighted at the idea of getting one over them. He clearly despises us all. It was a very ugly and disturbing sight. And optics matter.

As a slightly less serious aside, this is not the only disturbing sight involving Ruto or his henchmen that we’ve been treated to recently. Francis Atwoli (76), secretary-general of the Central Organisation of Trade Unions, was ‘On The Bench’ with TV presenter Jeff Koinange when he declared that he had told popular opposition candidate Edwin Sifuna that “his time is not now”. Koinange responded with, “Whose time is now? You people, you old people! Whose time is now?”

Atwoli then appeared to suffer a violent convulsion, clenching his fists and pumping his arms and rattling his gold chains as he shrieked and shouted, “Ours! Ours! Ours! Ours who can say! Ours who have power! Ours who can drive! Who have the drive!”

What a disquieting sight. And to imagine that such a person somehow continues to represent, on paper but clearly not in spirit, a massive body of young working Kenyans.

The same Atwoli featured again when he and prime Cabinet secretary Musalia Mudavadi recently met Luhya UDA candidates in Kisumu. The two were shown greeting each other. There was a second’s hesitation as they negotiated mutual full-frontal challenges, before they reached over to connect briefly somewhere at the neck end, in a kind of awkward embrace. Another sight my eyes told me they wished they could unsee.

These two mutually congratulating giants of our ruling class had apparently been too cowardly to organise their UDA meeting on their own home turf, which tells you all you really need to know. Optics matter.

There are other unpleasantly toad-like and toadying characters on that side, no names mentioned. Meanwhile, a slew of memes on the internet with pictures of Sifuna and legends to the effect of “Great that we’ll be getting a handsome president at last” has obviously infuriated Ruto, and he has angrily hit back, advising people to “Wachana na maneno ya sura” and instead to choose someone who works.

We don’t need here to go into the nature of Ruto’s well-documented ‘work’ in this country. But his mean and desperate look, and his rough and chilling manner is never going to cut it, if there is to be a visual comparison.

Ruto himself said he has “Macho mbaya”, and those teeth don’t help either, putting me in mind of my childhood tales of Little Red Riding Hood and the scary ‘big bad wolf’ in disguise (“What big teeth you have, Grandma.” “All the better to eat you with” etc). There is no doubt that Sifuna is easy on the eye, and with all the disturbing sights we are daily forced to witness, it would surely be mean-spirited to deny folk their enjoyment of a bit of eye candy. There’s enough ugliness in this world. Optics matter.

But I digress.

The gradual failure of many of his plans has left Ruto consumed with an anger he is visibly barely able to control. He is under extreme pressure and it’s eating him up from inside.

The death in a helicopter crash of his Zimbabwean friend Wicknell Chivayo must have been a terrible blow, maybe one of the last straws. The blow is not because of love or respect, but because this fixer is no more, and worse, he reportedly went down with Sh1.3 trillion-worth of Ruto’s cash, stashed away somewhere only Chivayo knew – or if anyone else does, they are definitely not saying. That must be a substantial setback to Ruto’s war-chest. No wonder he looks a bit grey around the gills.

Apparently, and I have not personally witnessed this but we are indebted once more to former deputy president Rigathi Gachagua for the information, Chivayo would fly in, land at a private airstrip and take off again with Ruto’s dollars, to be laundered somewhere abroad.

Chivayo was also very familiar with Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan, judging by the way he was pictured lolling grossly in a chair while talking with her. Reportedly, he and her sons were in business together. No doubt.

Gachagua did not say where Ruto’s dollars came from but the whole business of Ruto and money is a confounding one. He gives out billions of shillings in cash weekly. Where does he keep it? Does he have a room at his house, lined floor to ceiling with bundles of money? He must have. Or somewhere.

And then, where is that kind of money coming from? Even all the levies and taxes and funds Ruto has created cannot account for it in the volumes and quantities we are seeing and hearing about.

So, we have to think laterally and ask ourselves, what is worth a lot of money? And the thing that comes quickly to mind is gold. And where is there a lot of gold nearby? Answer: Sudan. And who has made a strong alliance with a Sudanese rebel group, the RSF, which is heavily associated with the illegal extraction and smuggling of gold from Sudan? Answer: Ruto. These are not allegations. These are facts.

On February 18 last year, the RSF, with Ruto’s blessing, held an event in Nairobi aimed at forming an alliance of politicians and armed groups to strengthen the RSF’s presence in Sudan.

This led to a diplomatic uproar, with the Sudanese government issuing a statement regretting “the Kenyan government’s disregard for its obligations under international law by hosting the event of signing a so-called ‘political agreement’ between the terrorist Janjaweed militia responsible for ongoing acts of genocide in Sudan”.

If the Sudan government thought Ruto would care anything whatsoever about legal obligations, international or otherwise, they were to be sorely disappointed.

According to the United Nations Panel of Experts and the independent international affairs policy institute Chatham House, gold is the primary currency and revenue source for the RSF, which controls the mines in Darfur, mills the ore, and smuggles the gold out of the country. Kenya and Tanzania are facilitating the trafficking as major transit points, from where the gold eventually reaches trading hubs such as Dubai.

Have you ever wondered why our chaps keep going to Dubai? I’m pretty certain it is not because they have developed a consuming interest in that city’s rich cultural heritage, modern architecture, futuristic art and traditional markets.

And after you marry together the gold trade, the rebels and the greedy conspirators, the inevitable follows, with trade in weapons and military equipment fuelling the civil war in Sudan.

Now, why would Ruto want to get mixed up in all that? Single-word answers only, please.

And this, it appears, is also where Chivayo came in. Chivayo is another one about whom people long wondered where he got all his money. He was all over the continent and had been suspected of assisting the smuggling of heavy weaponry from Malawi to the Sudanese rebels.

Chivayo was frequently seen hobnobbing with Malawian national leaders. And since his death, it has all been happening in Lilongwe. The very next day, the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau arrested former Malawi Defence Force commander General Paul Valentino Phiri, for allegedly facilitating illegal trafficking of arms, rumoured to be worth up to US$4 billion, and linked to the Sudan war. The net was obviously closing, and somebody had to carry the can. Phiri got the ticket.

The Sudanese government has also claimed to have found shells with Zimbabwean branding, and in June last year said it had discovered Kenyan-labelled weapons and ammunition hidden in RSF caches across Khartoum and Omdurman.

Internationally, Chivayo had known too much. Basically, he was a corruptly rich nobody, a witless front-man used by all but who showed off a bit too much and became a liability. Is there anyone who thinks that crash was an accident?

Then it was a race to cover up his dirty dealings. Chivayo’s home in Harare allegedly contained a wealth of money, diamonds, gold, probably also damning information, you name it. There’s nothing you can do with all that illicit stuff, nowhere you can bank it, so it has to be stored somewhere. The house was reportedly immediately closed off, including to his family, so that state security operatives could protect their masters’ interests, reportedly going as far as excavating below the house and in the garden.

A final fascinating detail is that Madam Suluhu reportedly offered to send hired men to help secure the Chivayo house. Nothing to hide, then.

“Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Which loosely translates as, such are the people Ruto values and does business with.

His boiling anger at the turn in his fortunes generally is being vented all over and against anyone who is handy, even a journalist who was rudely upbraided for simply mentioning Gachagua’s name (shades of Trump and his exact-same behaviour towards journalists in the US). Ruto doesn’t know who to abuse next – Gachagua, Sifuna or Uhuru Kenyatta – using all the derogatory names and words he can think of.

He’s recycling the epithets and ridicule he used on Raila Odinga and doesn’t seem to realise that we’ve all moved on and are way past that kind of word association being effective. (Ruto is still the best president ever, though, according to Raila Jr recently. It’s no wonder Raila always introduced his son as ‘a good businessman and not a politician’.)

Besides desperation, Ruto’s temper tantrums make him look rough and cheap. It is totally unbecoming behaviour in a president, and it proves once again that you can take the chicken-seller off the street but you can’t take the street out of the chicken-seller. Vulgar insults flow from his mouth. Underneath the thin veneer of sophistication, he is still the same pugnacious street ruffian. Optics matter. 

But Ruto himself already knows that optics matter. That is why he puts on his best designer suit and turns up with his best AI-scripted speeches at international forums. He gives the (mostly) western nations what he thinks they want to hear.

They, in turn, are conscious that they vaguely have to ‘do something’ to show an interest in Africa, and they are happy to make this articulate-sounding person their house-n****r. They don’t know any better, and they care even less than Ruto does. If he thinks they end up respecting him, he’s deceiving himself. He is only a useful-idiot means to their ends.

And his fancy speeches don’t really fool anyone. His recent flowery address to the (almost empty) UN chamber, full of claims totally contradictory to the actual situation back home, elicited this telling response from one Doanh Chau, president of the Vietnam Gas/Energy Science Group and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur:

“You can stand in New York and talk about billions for education, technology and development. But back home, if the lights are flickering, infrastructure is inadequate and citizens are questioning governance and accountability, another investment speech will not solve the problem

“Africa does not lack speeches. Africa does not even lack capital looking for opportunities. It lacks enough bankable projects, reliable institutions and accountable execution to turn that capital into development.

“Before asking the world for another dollar, perhaps the more important question is: What happened to the dollars already invested?”

What, indeed, Bill? Any optics to share? Dollars being loaded on to a plane at a lonely airstrip, maybe?