Prezzo UK's been out of power for four long years,why won't we let him be?

Former President Uhuru Kenyatta and President Ruto during the burial of the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga at Bondo, October 19, 2025. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

Once upon, not too long ago, when the nation was in the grip of a fever of a certain envelope that then International Criminal Court Prosecutor showman Luis Moreno-Ocampo said contained names of suspects bearing the gravest responsible for the pogrom that roiled Kenya in 2007, Prezzo Bill Ruto revealed he was adept at reading unopened letters. He rightly predicted that his name was in the famous envelope.

The charges against him, for the Gen-Zs who weren’t born then, and who will be casting a ballot next year, included murder, enforced disappearance and crimes against humanity. The ICC case against Prezzo Ruto ultimately collapsed because, ICC reported, many of the witnesses had been murdered, disappeared, or were too intimidated to testify.

Last week, Prezzo Ruto displayed more psychic powers by predicting he could tell who’s a stooge of retired Prezzo Uhuru Kenyatta aka UK and who’s not, just by looking at their faces. “Don’t they look sponsored; don’t they look like stooges or puppets?” he asked for the umpteenth time in reference to various opposition leaders.

The supposed patron of the opposition responded a few days later with a wave of hand. “Mimi sitaki kuitwa sponsa, na mimi sitaki mambo mingi,” declared retired Prezzo UK to mean he was no one’s sponsor and he did not want to be drawn into others’ shenanigans.

Here’s the thing. Prezzo UK has always been a reluctant politician. I hear he’s in his element when listening to croons from UB40, the British reggae band, while enjoying a cuppa of uji, so this business of blaming him for just about everything, including the imminent El-Nino floods, is quite a drag.

Or maybe not. As a scion of the original “dynasty,” the eldest son of the founding Prezzo Jomo Kenyatta, he’s probably at fault for the being intractably woven to our national mythologies, and the fanning of the hustler-dynasty divide that, according to Prezzo Ruto’s 2022 campaign rhetoric, padded a small class of dynasts to the detriment of the minions.

If you believe Rigathi Gachagua aka Riggy G, Prezzo Ruto has since been elevated to a dollar billionaire in the last four years, allegedly from the rich pickings from all public procurements that seem orchestrated to benefit Ruto Inc., which means he’s become a dynast in his own right.

If that’s the case, does it behove Prezzo UK to admit Prezzo Ruto to this small clique of dynasts? Well, not quite, especially since one is born into a dynasty, rather than buying their way in. I think this explanation rationalises the deep hurt that Prezzo Ruto seems to suffer from Prezzo UK’s spurn.

Prezzo Ruto’s anguished expressions as he detailed his overtures to Prezzo Kenyatta featured not just the precise dates and the various slights, he also had photographic memory of newspaper headlines that highlighted Prezzo UK’s “subversive” activities to shore up the opposition, one would think Prezzo UK writes newspaper headlines.

None of this makes sense given that the Kenya Kwanza administration purportedly inherited empty coffers, yet there is always something to steal, so Prezzo Ruto’s determined efforts to recruit his predecessor into statecraft was a contradiction of terms.

So, what’s going? The more plausible explanation is that Prezzo Ruto feels powerless, in spite of everything, while Prezzo UK’s influence continues to grow, despite being out of power. It’s probably because Prezzo UK has never cared about power, because he grew surrounded by it. Ditto his father, Kenyatta I, who preferred commuting to Gatundu apparently because he was haunted by the ghosts of the beberu who previously occupied the Nairobi State House.

I wonder if Prezzo Ruto is experiencing similar visitations from his forebears, even though his torment is singularly attributed to the only surviving former Prezzo. The hysteria against Prezzo UK’s purported meddling will only grow shrill as the General Election draws near, because the strategy worked four years ago. Those expecting such deflections to stick next year are hallucinating.