UhuRuto Tantrums: Walking in the other's shoes and a lesson for leaders

She looked thin and pale. Her yellowish, watery eyes had sunk deep into the dark sockets. Her once fleshy cheeks clung tightly on to the thin facial structure. She struggled, with the help of a nurse to sit up on her hospital bed. She was a painful, pathetic and tearful sight.

“Thank you for visiting me Bwana Atemi,” she mumbled. She could barely eat. After a few moments with her, I left the ward traumatised. I was heading a small team tasked with a fundraising assignment for her medical bill.  It was a slow, torturous process, watching our human resource manager swing between life and death. Then, one day, she walked out of the hospital into full recovery.

As soon as she resumed work, she pulled out the welfare files and medical proposals she had rejected or suppressed. While at the helm, she never imagined that with her good pay, she would one day require fundraising to save her life. She had argued that it was wrong to “give too much comfort and protection to staff.” “Everyone,’ she said, ‘should be disciplined enough to cater for family members medical expenses from their salary.” She authorised a series of workshops to empower staff members on financial discipline and management. But she denied them ample medical cover. 

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  Isolating Uhuru? Ruto took his base, party and now has Raila

Each time I remember her, I think of our greedy politicians who suffer from short memory. While in power, they create and enforce laws, rules and orders as if they will remain immune forever.  They turn into Biblical Gehazis, led by greed and dishonesty. It is this greed and power’s drunken stupor that the Archbishop of the ACK Jackson Ole Sapit says; “is slowly killing our country.” 

Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta eight or so days ago stood outside the gate of one of his sons, to ‘defend’ him against the police and other government agencies, who a few months ago, were under his command. It was a Gehazi and Haman moment. I was perplexed when I saw him crying foul.

Between 2013 and September 2022, Uhuru was the fourth president of the Republic of Kenya. He was the commander-in-chief of the defence forces. During his reign, he spoke with authority. He harassed, intimidated and tormented those he considered to be gadflies in his administration.  

His minister for interior Dr Fred Matiangi pursued his work with the vengeful anger and passion that Haman had for Mordecai. He unleashed terror on ‘enemies’ of state. Police brutalised anti-government protestors. Many were teargassed, beaten and wounded during demos organised by leader of opposition Raila Odinga. Scenes of policemen engaging in armed combat with youth in Mathare, Kibra, Dandora, Kisumu, and other parts of Kenya still run in the mind of the country. Innocent lives like that of baby Pendo were lost. Tears flowed, bones were broken, businesses were destroyed. The people of western Kenya, especially the Luo, were subjected to untold suffering. 

Then suddenly, Raila and Uhuru shook hands. Uhuru turned his guns on his deputy William Ruto. Uhuru and Raila launched a campaign against corruption. Buildings were brought down. People lost billions when homes, schools and shopping malls were demolished for allegedly standing on riparian land. It became apparent that those targeted were mainly perceived to be Ruto’s close associates. Many were arrested and arraigned, charged with various crimes. The current deputy president Rigathi Gachagua had his bank accounts frozen. He spent some nights in custody. Matiangi used unkind words to describe Ruto and associates. In the ensuing propaganda war, Ruto was portrayed as being irredeemably corrupt. 

The bulldozers were on their demolition mission, moving towards the Weston Hotel along Nairobi’s Lang’ata road. The hotel is linked to President Ruto. 

Tables have now turned. Uhuru is wearing the shoes which Ruto and  Raila once wore. Last week, he sought out editors for a heart-to-heart talk. He cried about the humiliation he and his family have endured from the Ruto administration. The meeting had no recording equipment. No pictures were allowed. He, however, asked the editors to publish what had transpired - that became headlines on TV and newspapers the following day. 

Uhuru’s decision to seek out media speaks volumes. His was an agonising reign of terror for the Kenyan media. As a newly elected president in 2013, he described Newspapers as; magazeti ni ya kufunga nyama. Then his government launched policies that financially emasculated media. It launched an agency to run all government advertisements (Government Advertising Agency) that hived off a great percentage of media revenue sending most media to penury.

Uhuru has suddenly seen the light. He now knows the important role that media plays in society. His decision to seek out journalists sends a message that everyone needs the media. Uhuru is, however, caught in a controversial and embarrassing situation. As a former head of state, he is stuck in political wars between his former deputy and Raila. After the Supreme Court ruling that affirmed Ruto’s election in August 2022, Uhuru loudly stated that he recognises only Raila as his leader. 

Former presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki retired honourably and went into the seclusion of their homes. Despite their differences, Kibaki and Moi maintained a cordial relationship. Uhuru had the same respect and honour for his predecessors. The hatred and bile between him and Ruto is, therefore, shameful and bad for country. It, however, offers a few important lessons for posterity. 

When Uhuru and Ruto took power in 2013, they promised to expand and enhance media freedoms. The duo was the first to implement the 2010 Constitution. Young. Vibrant and full of promise, they came with sugar coated tongues. They took over a country that was bubbling with joy and economic success left by their elder Mwai Kibaki. 

They warmed their way into the vulnerable heart of the media. In fact, on 12 July 2013, they hosted top editors to breakfast at the State House. With numerous hugs and selfies, Uhuru told the editors that the meeting provided a great opportunity to build a good relationship between the media and the State. I cringed because I have never trusted politicians. 

In July 2013, the Presidential Press Service was rebranded. It became Presidential Strategic Communication Unit, with extra role of communicating government policy.

The unit retained its mandate of a conveyor of news for the mainstream media. Just as the media and the State were warming up the blankets, in October 2013, terrorists attacked Nairobi’s Westgate mall. 

Investigations were launched into the terror attack. Reports emerged implicating soldiers from the Kenya Defence Forces in looting during the siege. Furious, the government accused the media of misreporting. The friendship died and the blankets were thrown away. 

The media started scrutinising his style of leadership. In 2015, he unleashed disparaging remarks against the media saying that gazeti ni ya kufunga nyama. From Karibu chai, Uhuru graduated to; Ninyi mzime hiyo mavitu yenyu na muende. The media now became unwelcome visitors. 

In February 2018, during a police service conference, Uhuru ordered journalists to switch off their cameras and leave. Then in 2017, during the handshake, the government withdrew advertising revenue from mainstream media. The Uhuruto regime set up a state run pullout and website MyGov which carried all advertising from government agencies. They established the government agency to coordinate MyGov. Uhuru had just robbed the “meat wrappers” off major advertising revenue amounting to millions of shillings. The government disregarded a court order directing it to end the media shutdown. 

On January 30, 2018, the government shut down broadcasts of three main television stations owned by The Standard Group, Royal Media Services and the Nation Media Group. The government didn’t want them to stream live the mock swearing in ceremony of Raila, the National Super Alliance (NASA) candidate as the ‘People’s President’.  The media shutdown came as a shock to the whole country, politicians, foreign diplomats and civil rights movements. No one believed that it was the same hugging, smiling, selfie taking president of high-fives.

Uhuru had brought back the 1980s when journalists were routinely arrested, harassed, tortured, detained and jailed. Publications were banned and printing presses dismantled. 

The physical threat to journalists had returned during the era of Kibaki when First Lady Lucy Kibaki invaded the Nation Media Group on Kimathi Street in 2005 attacking a cameraman and confiscating note books and recorders. She felt aggrieved that the media had negatively reported the first family. Then, later, a special police squad under the CID command invaded the Standard Group in the thick of the night. Kibaki had chaired a meeting that authorised the attack on The Standard.   

As president, Uhuru’s style had elements of ruthlessness. He militarised the police and extrajudicial killings escalated. Rivers were soon flowing with bodies of victims of police brutality. He dismantled alternative sources of power. He trampled upon every institution including the Judiciary. He had actually sworn in public that he would revenge against the Judiciary for annulling his August 2017 ‘victory’. He ignored all court orders.  He created a powerful, wealthy and classy cabal similar to the Kiambu Mafia that surrounded his father. In order to amass absolute power, Uhuru insisted that small parties that helped him ease his way to power be dissolved into an umbrella Jubilee Party. Uhuru started to talk and behave like an all-powerful king. He politically walked and sniffed that way.

His family has invested in Mediamax which owns several radio stations, two television stations and a newspaper. In 2014, during the World Press Freedom Day, Uhuru told the media that they didn’t have absolute freedom on what to publish or broadcast. 

As is the case under Ruto, in Uhuru’s reign, both houses of Parliament were dominated by the ruling Jubilee. Civil society and opposition had been weakened dramatically.   

Uhuru had so much contempt for the media that in 2017, he snubbed the presidential debate which took place some days before the General Election.  And in 2022, Raila, his handshake partner, who was contesting the presidency for the fifth time, also skipped the presidential debate. He said he could not face Ruto in debate because, according to him, Ruto had a dirty past. By snubbing the debate, Uhuru and Raila sent a contemptuous message to the media. 

However, when he felt like using the media, he would call for their help. He needed to drum up support in central region. Two days to the August 9, 2022 general election, he switched to mother tongue. He invited vernacular stations to State House to drum up support for Raila. 

I watched his conduct and wondered at lessons leaders never learn. During my tour of duty, I helped to rewrite the history of Kenya. In western Kenya, I documented the plight of citizens in the region. They had been punished for years because their key leaders opposed the government. I documented the systematic killing of the Luo whenever the security forces got a chance to unleash terror on them. Major industries and agricultural ventures in the region were killed by the State

One of the stories we told with aplomb was the making of a democratic nation. We documented different aspects, snippets and characters in the fight for democracy. Leaders such as Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Martin Shikuku and Masinde Muliro provided good fodder for us. Our enmity with the police deepened.            

I met young, enthusiastic and passionate writers. Some have since grown into industry leaders. I remember George Nyabuga, now professor, who joined the then East Africa Standard in the 1990s. Prof Nyabuga says; “We had a great team of reporters, sub-editors, editors, proof-readers, designers and the printing press staff all working towards great and quality journalism. It was the passion for the job, the commitment, the camaraderie that made the team and the work environment beautiful.” 

We did our best to keep an eye on the political health of Kenya. We knew that premium on political power in Africa is extremely high. Claude Ake, of the Nigerian Political Science Association once observed that: “We are intoxicated with politics; the premium on political power is so high that we are prone to take the most extreme measures to win and to maintain political power…” That is exactly what happens in Kenya every five years. That is what Sapit was alluding to.

A hold on political power in Kenya, just like in Nigeria, means control of resources, access to wealth and status. Winning control of state power has become a life and death issue. Despite our despicable economic situation, our politicians have continued to bribe, steal, and accumulate illicit wealth. It is this wealth that makes them forget that they are mortals. 

In 1983, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe wrote that; “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal examples which are the hallmarks of true leadership,” 

Achebe was inadvertently writing about Kenya. 

However, there are enough historical lessons to warn Ruto to go slow on Uhuru. In 1964, Abeid Karume’s regime was established in Zanzibar following a revolution against the Arabs. Karume, with little formal education, was leader of the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). He mobilised support from African labourers, fishermen, farmers and other peasants. 

Once in power, a vengeful Karume initiated a punishment scheme against the Arabs. He established the Revolutionary Council and set about arresting, imprisoning, tormenting and executing Arabs. While exercising power over indigenous Africans, Arabs had committed horrendous atrocities. 

Martin Meredith, in The State of Africa says that: “Thousands of Arabs were forcibly deported, parked into dhows, some old and unseaworthy, and sent to the Arabian Gulf. A British port official witnessed how the first three dhows were crammed with 450 Arab deportees given only 600 gallons of water for a journey expected to last anything from three to six weeks.” 

Karume embarked on a reign of terror even marrying Arab and Asian girls by force. He told his revolutionary council that: “In colonial times the Arabs took African concubines without bothering to marry them. Now that we are in power, the shoe is on the other foot.” 

Perhaps the cruelest of dictators in Africa was Central African Republic leader Jean-Bendel Bokassa. His excesses included 17 wives, a score of mistresses and an official brood of 55 children. He was prone to towering rages as well as outburst of sentimentality; he also gained a reputation for cannibalism. 

Bokassa killed thousands. A prison director would later testify that: “From, 1976 to 1979, I executed dozens of officers, soldiers, diverse personages, thieves, students under instructions from Bokassa. Some were beaten to death with hammers and chains from Bokassa. Bokassa was also known to hold kangaroo courts in the gardens of the Villa Kalongo, sentencing men to be killed by lions or crocodiles kept there.” 

In April 1979, he participated in the beating up of student protestors. Thirty students had been stuffed into a cell meant for one. When the cell doors were opened the following day, many had died. He actively participated in the killing of 100 students. The French media dubbed him the ‘Butcher of Bangui’ The French overthrew him on September 20, 1979. He fled into exile. He was tried in absentia and sentenced to death. He later returned home and his sentence was commuted to life and then to twenty years’ imprisonment. 

“In prison, he turned to religion, constantly read the Bible and considered himself an apostle of Christ. After seven years’ imprisonment he was released and spent his last days in Bangui in the Villa Nasser, surviving on a French army pension. He died in 1996, at the age of 75 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Berengo,” writes Meredith. 

Many incidents are recorded in Africa’s political history that are analogies that send a message to Ruto that he must protect Uhuru and his family no matter their differences. 

Meanwhile, when media are fought relentlessly and consistently, quality of governance deteriorates. Greater media freedom helps put in check corruption. Like our former HR manager, Uhuru’s leadership missteps caught up with him. The media should not fall prey to either Uhuru’s hypocritical tears or Ruto’s seductive winks. Politicians, especially Kenyan ones, are the same; potential monsters.