Ruto should atone for his political sins before his reunion with president

Deputy President William Ruto during a meeting with grassroot leaders from Kandara Constituency, Murang'a County at Karen residence, Nairobi. [Susan Nyamasege/DPPS]

On September 15, 23 Catholic bishops offered to mediate talks between President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

Underpinning the importance of unity between the two leaders, they urged the leaders to set aside their differences for the country's greater good. In response to the call, DP Ruto declared he was ready and willing to be reunited with his boss. Unconditionally.

However, those who have worked with Kamagut's most favourite son attest that Ruto; being the hustler he claims to be, is not a man you can trust to wrap a gift for you! If he buries a hatchet with you, expect him to mark the ground. And if you embrace him in a political truce, you would be lucky if he doesn’t stab you in the back! 

Now that the DP wants to be reunited with his boss, will he first atone for his political sins and make things right? For starters, it is patently obvious that Uhuru is on trial in the court of public opinion in Mt Kenya and his accusers are the DP and politicians allied to him.

They have labelled the president an ungrateful and a treacherous leader who betrayed his loyal second-in-command and sidelined him from decision-making in a government that wouldn’t have existed were it not for his (Ruto’s) concerted efforts! What is worse, they have guilefully argued, that the president offered his deputy's place to Jubilee Party's nemesis and ODM party leader, Raila Odinga.

In the spirit of reconciliation, will Ruto tell the people of Mt Kenya the truth, that contrariwise to the duplicitous narrative he and allies have peddled in the region, that he is the one who betrayed the president?

That immediately the Jubilee duo were re-elected in 2017 to serve their second term — and Uhuru, in his state of the nation address, pronounced himself on his government’s agenda and appealed to all leaders to stop politicking and work for Kenyans, Ruto breached their pact and instead of rallying the entire Jubilee government behind the president and his development agenda, he led his ‘Tangatanga’ team into early campaigns in total defiance of his boss.

Will Ruto, open up to members of Jubilee that in actual fact, his defiance and interminable campaigns are largely to blame for reducing Jubilee to the moribund party it is today? That his misdeeds sowed seeds of discord in the party dividing its parliamentarians into two camps: One supporting the president and the other traversing the nation with him in blatant infraction of his pact with his boss?  

Consequent to the unusually long electioneering period of 2017 and the chaos witnessed, the Kenyan economy took a nosedive and urgently needed cushioning. To restore peace to the crisis-ridden country and avoid the imminent economic meltdown, the president reached out to his political nemesis Raila and this culminated in the much acclaimed handshake.

Will the DP admit to Kenyans that the president kept him abreast of the new development and seek forgiveness for his persistent denigration of the handshake and the president?  

When the handshake birthed the BBI, Ruto denounced the process and led a campaign to disparage it and its proposals, terming it a dangerous affront to the Constitution and a scheme to hoodwink the already economically overburdened voters into creating more positions for the political elite.

If Ruto is genuine in his quest, he must, like the Zacchaeus of the Bible, humble himself and own up to his lies and misdeeds before he is reunited with his boss. Else, Ruto and his allies ought to heed Abraham Lincoln’s warning that one may fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time but cannot fool all the people all the time.