Pity, if you can, Dr William Ruto. As Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya, Ruto has been used to a free reign – from running his office to travelling the country, even abroad. That’s how it should be in a free world and in a democratic state that Kenya’s thinks it is.
It’s an open secret that Ruto loves to walk around (meaning travel). His political movement was even branded Tanga Tanga (Kiswahili phrase for ‘walking around aimlessly’) to crown his movements few years ago that saw him crisscross the country on a weekly basis. Lately, though, the Covid-19 containment measures have curtailed his movements and latest pronouncements enhanced the ban on political gatherings must have left the DP a bored man.
Why not visit my neighbour, he must have thought. So he planned to fly out to Kampala on 2nd August to meet Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni. No, problem. Until it came to the airport where he found tables turned against him. According to reports he was, like other civil servants, now required to seek clearance not from the President but the head of civil service, Mr Joseph Kinyua.
Well, let’s just imagine the rules of the game have changed against the DP and every moment is sought to frustrate him because, political pundits tell us, he is opposed to President Uhuru’s Kenyatta’s political handshake with ODM leader Raila Odinga and has chosen to de-campaign a government in which he sits.
Is someone just out to tame the Deputy President by all means or is there more than meets the eye in Ruto’s trip to Uganda? While what happened at the airport is, to say the least, unfair and embarrassing, the so-called Deep State which has been accused of engineering the action should tell Kenyans more about it. Otherwise, left pending, it becomes counterproductive for the gunslingers in government as it is instead winning Ruto a lot of sympathy.
Yoweri Museveni is not the best friends to have, anyway, going by democratic standards. We all know his political ideology and the kind of plans he has for Uganda. Given that the DP was in Kampala in early July, his return so soon cannot fail to raise eyebrows especially at this time Kenya is toying with a referendum as it inches closer to transitional general elections.
There’s something certainly fishy about the DP’s dalliance with Museveni. But there’s also something seriously wrong when the counterattack is done to embarrass the second in command. It could be politics, yes, but let it done to the DP as it is done to the President. After all, they both own this Jubilee Government.
Mr Ruto responded to the action curtly, “Isorait. Tuwachie MUNGU”. At Business Today, we tell him: It’s not alright, Sir. What happened to you at Wilson Airport is very wrong.
