Ruto's animal farm and his art of political, economic gaslighting

President William Ruto during the Groundbreaking for the construction of Narok International Airport project. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, there is a character named Squealer, a pig whose sole purpose is to serve as the regime’s chief propagandist. With a nimble command of language and a disregard for truth, Squealer convinces the other animals that their failing memories are in fact evidence of sheer progress, and that Napoleon, their leader, is the sole saviour from crises they never knew existed. He completely rewrites history, manipulates statistics, and turns the regime’s most blatant failures into triumphant success. Watching President William Ruto’s latest State of the Nation address and reflecting on his administration’s performance three years into his term, one cannot help but see a modern Squealer at work – manufacturing political crises and presenting himself as the sole figure capable of resolving them.

Dr Ruto’s governance style reads like a blend of the Squealer and Potemkin village metaphors. While Squealer distorts reality through words, a Potemkin village does so through appearances. The Potemkin metaphor refers to 1787, when Russian minister Grigory Potemkin allegedly built fake villages along Empress Catherine the Great’s route to create a false impression of prosperity. These villages’ superficial façades misled observers and passersby about their wealth and success. In Ruto’s administration, colourful speeches of infrastructure and selective economic indicators serve the same purpose like the Potemkin village illusion by masking the harsh realities most Kenyans are facing.

Nowhere is this illusion more dangerous than in his both development and political rhetoric. During the State of the Nation address, roads, superhighways, housing, GDP growth, reduced inflation, and a stabilised shilling were presented as grand signs of economic progress. The President outlined an even more ambitious and sweeping vision for Kenya – highways and superhighways stretching across the country, expanded airports, revived national airlines, and a multi-trillion-shilling infrastructure drive meant to reposition Kenya on the global map.

His legacy, like that of his predecessor, it seems, is firmly anchored in monumental projects: Big roads, big airports, big promises – the kinds of structures politicians dream will have their names on them into the country’s political history. With evangelical zeal, Ruto spoke of leaping Kenya from the third world to the first, yet most citizens struggle daily with high taxes, rising living costs and limited access to basic services like education and healthcare.

Give it to him: The President speaks with such eloquence and confidence, often sounding like a polished motivational speaker of international standing. He articulates Kenya’s problems clearly – problems every Kenyan already knows and expected him to fix when he vied for the high office. Instead of offering solutions or action, he repeatedly returns to explain those same problems back to the public. His rhetoric is grand, but it rarely aligns with lived experience or concrete results.

Listening to him talk about leaping Kenya from the third world to the first, like many Kenyans, I could not help thinking about the basics he consistently sidelines. You cannot sprint a country into the “next world”, as he has recently become obsessed with, when the foundations needed to power such a leap remain shaky. Industrialisation, for instance, which he never said much about, depends on affordable and reliable electricity. That is the real engine of any nation’s ascent to the first world. Yet instead of fixing these essentials, we were bombarded yet again with grandiose visions that feel detached from the daily struggles of ordinary Kenyans.

Much of the President’s address leaned on a five-trillion-shilling dream and kilometres of tarmac yet to be built. He laid out, in detail, plans for 2,500 km of dual carriageways and 28,000 km of new tarmacked roads over the next decade. Airports in Nairobi, Mombasa and Lamu are to be modernised; Kenya Airways, he promised, will be “sorted out” by next year. Groundbreakings and launch ceremonies are scheduled with the regularity of sunrise.

But the real State of the Nation should reflect in household budgets. If Kenya’s economy were as vibrant as his electrifying speech suggested, citizens would feel it without promptings from State House or government functionaries. Instead, people continue to grapple with rising costs, scarce jobs, broken public services, and a stretched safety net.

The contradiction was striking: We were invited to dream of world-class infrastructure transformation while still struggling with third-world basics needs. Ambition is not the problem; the problem is grounding it. A country cannot leap into the future when the present remains unresolved. Electricity that is unaffordable, agriculture that is unsustainable, schools that lack resources, hospitals that cannot cope and deal with basic diagnosis – these are not minor inconveniences; they are structural barriers.

Even the infrastructure push as the centre-piece of Ruto’s legacy project, raises fundamental questions. Kenya has had roads long enough to know the problem is rarely the absence of tarmac; it is the leakage, wastage and mismanagement that erode every plan. We could have built most of these roads since independence if the money allocated to them had actually reached the ground.

Ruto’s flagship housing programme tells a similar story. Of the 226,000 homes promised annually, barely 4,300 units are said to exist three years into his term – and most still lack title deeds. The gap between projection and reality mirrors the gap between presidential rhetoric and the daily experiences of ordinary Kenyans.

The President’s ambitions are vast, and sometimes noble. But ambition without grounding is like dreaming of a palace in the clouds at night while waking up in a house with a leaking roof and crumbling walls. Kenya needs leadership that pairs words with action, projects with accountability, and dreams with the discipline to deliver. Until then, the gulf between presidential ambition and the everyday reality of ordinary Kenyans will remain a chasm – one no highway, however grand, can bridge.