Ruto’s key headache is in Jubilee, not the Uhuru-Raila handshake

Deputy President William Ruto

Deputy President William Ruto has long being valourised for his political genius. He’s been called a master strategist – a ruthless, cut throat schemer without peer in the Republic of Kenya. The man from Eldoret wears his burning ambition on his sleeve. Ever since he was betrothed to Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta for the 2013 elections, Mr Ruto has kept his eyes on the prize. He maniacally craves sleeping in Kenya’s most powerful address. That’s the house on the hill – State House. He thought he had corralled the Agikuyu – without whom he will never wake up at State House – until the March 9 “handshake” between ODM’s Raila Odinga and Mr Kenyatta. To Ruto, only Raila stands between him and State House.

Sit back, and let me peel this onion to reveal Ruto’sconundrum. Methinks Ruto may be traveling down a cul de sac, a dead end. There are many things I don’t agree with analyst Mutahi Ngunyi about. But Mr Ngunyi hits a bull’s eye when he opines that in Kenya, a person doesn’t – cannot – make himself president. In Ngunyi’s witty telling, others make you president. Ruto would be wise to heed Ngunyi’s sage advice. Ruto has proceeded as though he will anoint himself president whether Kenya’s political Mafiosi like it or not. This is a fool’s errand unless Ruto is planning a popular revolution, a mass uprising – a thronging mob – of “chicken hustlers.”