When slogans replace shame, the State has admitted failure

President William Ruto at the Baringo cultural festival and Kimalel goat Auctionin Baringo County.[PCS] 

Nations do not collapse in a single dramatic moment. They erode quietly, through indifference to suffering, casual contempt for citizens, and substitution of slogans for responsibility. That is where Kenya finds itself today. No amount of rhetorical travel to “Singapore” can disguise this reality.

Singapore was not built on clever speeches or borrowed metaphors. It was built on discipline, institutional integrity, and an unforgiving war against corruption. Singapore’s rise began by making theft dangerous and public service serious.

Kenya, under President William Ruto, has chosen the opposite approach: selling a destination without laying the foundation while dismantling the pillars needed to reach it. Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya’s largest referral hospital and the nation’s final line of care provides the most painful evidence of this collapse: it is officially broken. Patients are hungry, essential medicines are missing, dialysis sessions skipped, cancer tests delayed, and surgeries postponed. This is not opposition rhetoric; it is on record, openly admitted, and painfully real.

Such humiliation is unprecedented in Kenya’s history. Not under Kenyatta, Moi, Kibaki, or even under Uhuru has the State ever allowed its premier hospital to decay so publicly, so thoroughly and shamelessly. This disaster has a name: the Kenya Kwanza administration. A government that cannot keep its main public hospital running forfeits any moral authority to lecture about economic miracles. Singapore did not emerge by starving patients and mocking public pain; it rose by building a state that respected human dignity.

The crisis is compounded not just by the suffering, but by the state’s response. When Kenyans cry out, pointing to empty pharmacies, unpaid suppliers, and preventable deaths, the government’s reaction is neither humility nor corrective action. Instead, an arrogant advisor steps forward to ridicule, insult, and dismiss suffering citizens. That attitude is not confidence; it is contempt. History is ruthless with governments that laugh at pain.

In 2022, President Ruto made tangible promises – not abstract theory or philosophical ambition, but concrete pledges. He promised free Wi-Fi in markets, dignity for the “hustlers,” relief for mothers, and opportunity for citizens. Instead, Kenyans have endured rising deaths, deepening pain, tear gas, prisons, and a governing style defined by arrogance. The “Hustler” narrative proved to be nothing more than a marketing tool, and “Bottom-Up” was just a campaign slogan rather than a real economic model.

When those promises collapsed under reality, the regime did not reform – it rebranded, invoking “Singapore” as its new inspiration. But countries are not fixed by changing stories; they are fixed by changing behaviour. Singapore’s story is well documented. Lee Kuan Yew began by confronting corruption without compromise, ministers went to jail, some resigned in disgrace, and others took their own lives. Institutions were insulated from political interference, and public service was professionalised. Theft was punished.

Kenya has chosen a different path. Where Singapore jailed thieves, Kenya appoints them; where Singapore respected institutions, Kenya captures them. Singapore protected its citizens, but Kenya beats, tear-gasses, and mocks them. Singapore made corruption a career-ending offence; Kenya treats it as a negotiable inconvenience. Kenyans are not asking for miracles, they are asking only for three basic things: functioning healthcare, funded education, and an end to corruption. They are not demanding futuristic cities or international comparisons, just a state that doesn’t steal from its own people while preaching sacrifice.

Yet even these modest demands cannot be met under a system where corruption is not a problem to solve but an engine to maintain. A senior advisor casually admitted that “corruption existed before” as if that justifies theft. This mindset lays bare the governing philosophy: stealing is acceptable so long as the right people benefit. That philosophy alone disqualifies any reference to Singapore. Singapore broke with its past by crushing corruption; Kenya is entrenching it. Singapore built trust by respecting institutions; Kenya is hollowing them out. Singapore protected its citizens; Kenya treats public suffering as a public relations inconvenience.

Kenyans may be poor, but they are not foolish; they know when they are being deceived. They recognise when slogans are used to escape accountability, and they know you cannot preach prosperity while practising plunder. History does not record speeches; it records outcomes. It remembers who fed patients and who mocked them, who jailed thieves and who defended them, and who built institutions and who captured them.

Until this government treats corruption as an enemy rather than a tool, “Singapore” will remain what “Hustler” and “Bottom-Up” already are: empty words, offensive to a suffering nation and desperate attempts to outrun reality. You cannot build a disciplined society on indiscipline, nor can you mock your way out of failure.