Ruto's Singapore dream needs discipline and hard decisions

President William Ruto addressing Parliament.[PCS]

I must admit that I sometimes like President William Ruto’s imagination. It is refreshing to hear President Ruto speak boldly about the transformation of our country. His articulation of a dream in which Kenya becomes a developed country like Singapore within the next few years should not be taken lightly. Nations and even individuals do not move forward without dreams. What I know is that no society ever transformed itself by thinking small. I have learnt this through the study of the entire collection of John Maxwell’s works, including the most fundamental works: Success is a Choice and Change Your World.

Dreaming, however, is only the first act. History has taught me that dreams remain dreams unless they are accompanied by a clear, painful, and deliberate roadmap and conviction. In the same vein, vision without a strategy is poetry for its own sake. To speak of Kenya becoming the Singapore of Africa is to invite a deeper and uncomfortable conversation. We have to ask what development truly requires and what we are prepared to change about ourselves to get there.

In calibrating a nation to that level of development, we must consider the hardware and software that make things happen. Both matter, but one is far easier to fix. The hardware is what the president often talks about: roads, railways, ports, airports, power lines, and industrial parks. These are visible symbols of progress, “photographable,” so to speak. They can be launched, commissioned and named and are measurable and politically attractive.

A new road can be pointed at, a railway ridden and a bridge admired. Kenya has invested heavily in physical infrastructure over the years, sometimes impressively. But hardware alone does not make a nation developed. If it did, potholes would be our biggest enemy. No. Something else is.

There is another layer, less visible but far more decisive. I call this the software. It consists of the mindset of a people, their values, their discipline, their attitude towards work, their respect for rules, and, ultimately, their collective character. In short, their culture. This software determines how the hardware is used, maintained or destroyed. You can build the finest road, but if the driving culture is chaotic, corrupt and reckless, the road becomes a site of daily violence and death. You can install world-class systems, but if the culture around them is rotten, they collapse. This is where the Singapore dream becomes really complicated.

Fixing hardware is expensive, but it is relatively straightforward. Fixing software is painful. It requires leadership that is not merely eloquent but intentional. That is where cultural studies come in. Leaders should know that transformation is not always popular. In fact, discipline is rarely welcomed at first. You cannot legislate values overnight. You must enforce them consistently, sometimes harshly, until they become a habit.

Those who visit Rwanda from Kenya return with stories of cleanliness and discipline, showing the Rwandan system works. However, what is often unsaid is that this did not happen solely through speeches. It happened through sustained enforcement and clear consequences for breaches. Here is a leadership philosophy that does not negotiate with indiscipline. It does not request order; it demands it.

Kenya has glimpses of this kind of leadership before. The late John Michuki comes to mind. For a brief moment, our roads worked. Matatus behaved. Traffic rules mattered. The change felt abrupt, even brutal. There were protests, complaints and accusations of heavy-handedness. But something remarkable happened. Suddenly, a sense of order emerged. The rowdy Kenyan transport sector adjusted. The impossible became possible. Sadly, when enforcement retreated, chaos returned. This teaches that discipline does not maintain itself. Forget self-regulation.

Let me return to the Singapore question. Are we ready for the discipline transformation demands? Do we have leadership in key sectors that insist on rules, consequences and discomfort?

In my imagination, I do not see the current government capable of reimagining Kenya at this deeper level. Not because they lack intelligence, but because reimagining a nation requires more than technical competence. It demands philosophical, moral and ideological courage. They should know that development is as much a moral project as an economic one. This is where President Ruto should begin: get the right people to drive this agenda intentionally.

To become like Singapore is not just to copy its buildings. We have to internalise discipline and cultivate a national intolerance for mediocrity, corruption and disorder. We must reward excellence and punish failure consistently. Rules are not suggestions.

The Singapore dream is therefore viable. It will, however, require a radical rethinking and reimagining of Kenya. My word to the president is that the dream is awesome, but get ideologically committed citizens with the courage to fix the software, even when it hurts.