Irony of Ruto's packed 'town hall' to answer own questions, as patients wait for miracle

President William Ruto during the 2026 Health Summit at KICC in Nairobi on August 18, 2026. [PCS]

It appears Prezzo Bill Ruto has been working overtime since media houses set stopwatches in a countdown to the next General Election, and his monotone on Monday night caught me at the barber shop.

Now, that’s a sacred time for me, when I surrender to nudges of sleep, lured by the gentle buzz of a shaving machine. So, I was reasonably irritated to have this treat disrupted by Prezzo Ruto’s rants about his government’s performance in delivering healthcare to Kenyans.

I was looking for a more respectful verb other than rant, but I found none. I suppose I was more respectful than folks at a barber shop in Nairobi’s CBD, where my friend was also having his hair cut, and folks there simply switched stations when Prezzo Ruto came on.

I won’t repeat the slur that was issued by the CBD folks, but it seems Prezzo Ruto loses support every time he opens his mouth to speak. I didn’t pursue from my friend which channel the barber in CBD settled on, but I suppose it was one of those Mexican soap operas that are impossibly rendered in indigenous local languages, in and of itself a source of great merriment.

Since I had no access to my barber’s remote control, I stoically endured Prezzo Ruto irritating diatribe that insisted that the healthcare system that he inaugurated four years ago is not just working, it is working exceedingly well.

A “townhall” assumes a few particularities, chief among them that the respondent, in this case, Prezzo Ruto, is intent on listening and responding to questions from his audience. He did neither. The very first question was simple and direct, even though it was couched as a “certain elephant in the room.”

Reason? The respectful interlocutor felt constrained from calling Prezzo Ruto a liar for promising diapers for new mums, while he was on the campaign trail in 2022. It never happened when he took charge. “What happened?” came the simple question.

But since Prezzo Ruto is an intelligent man, and he repeatedly charges others have no akili for challenging his policies, he weaved an excruciatingly long diatribe that suggested he did not renege on his diaper pledge; he’s only been laying the groundwork for delivery! No, not babies’ delivery, but delivery of diapers.

From where I sat, head tilted at an awkward angle as my straggly beards were shorn off, eyes shut against the glare of the powerful lights, I thought Prezzo Ruto sounded out of depth, even incoherent, as he reeled off answers to questions that he asked himself, or fashioned those posed to him in a manner that appealed to him. In short, he was doing what call kujiongelesha, a slippery expression that implies one is speaking to oneself, which suggests they’re not thinking straight.

I’ll share a short story so that Prezzo Ruto and his ilk, who are preaching about the miracles of SHA can visit a mission hospital in Gachie and perform their wonder. The patient is aged 97. He contributed to the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) throughout his working life. And he’s been making his contributions to Social Health Authority (SHA) since it started.

Since his hospitalisation, the old man has been in and out of ICU and HDU in top private hospitals in Nairobi, raking up bills that hit several million shillings. As we speak, the old man is awaiting discharge, but only after some 700k bill is paid.

The family has exhausted its financial resources; they have tried to offload a piece of land in a distress sale, but there have been no takers. Another relative has been chasing her pension to pay off the hospital bill, but even that doesn’t seem feasible any time soon. They are simply at their wits’ end.

Let those preaching about the miracles of SHA perform it on this patient, as I’m sure many other Kenyan families are crying, or forever shut their mouths.