'Ikuje Garre, iteremke Modogashe': Kenyans turn Ruto's mastery of North Eastern roads into viral meme

Amid roaring laughter from the gathered politicians at the function, Gachagua explained how Ruto's mastery of rural roads around Mt. Kenya left the residents in absolute astonishment, easily winning their hearts.

He said: "Naona huyo jamaa amekwama hapo kwenu. Nyinyi mko na bahati but we are here to advise you. Alienda kwenu siku sita, kwetu he was there six days out of seven, every week. Hakuna barabara hajui kwa jina. Hakuna soko hajui kwa jina. And he would memorise, we were very impressed. He would mention a road and Kikuyus would go, "Eh eh eh eh!"

Gachagua's amusing narration would again be rekindled after President Ruto toured the North Eastern region last week, taking a bag of goodies to the marginalised counties and promising a raft of radical actions on areas such as security and wholesome integration of the community into the Kenyan psyche.

On infrastructure, Ruto explained that the government would expand the road network in the North Eastern region to open up the area and spur socio-economic transformation.

He particularly noted that the government was building the 750-kilometer Isiolo-Modogashe-El Wak- Mandera road to integrate the North Eastern region with the rest of the country - and this is when the new memes began flying across the internet.

Atop his vehicle, and surrounded by a large crowd in the sweltering Isiolo sun, Ruto dropped one of his hits promising that the road would be vast and connect the entire region, showing his mastery of the area.

"Ndio barabara itoke Mandera, ikuje Ramu, ikuje Garre, ikuje El-Wak, ikuje Kobo, ikuje pale Kotulo, ikuje Tarbat, ipitie hapa Wajir, iende Samatan, iteremke Modogashe, ifike Isiolo, iende Nairobi..."

Immediately after that particular part of his speech hit the internet, Kenyans intertwined it with the earlier Gachagua narration on Ruto's penchant for bamboozling the masses with his intricate knowledge of their rural roads and the connecting markets.

On TikTok, creative Kenyans even churned out short videos trolling Ruto's lyricism - some videos show the names of the towns written down on a piece of paper while an instructor takes the viewer step-by-step, as if in a classroom.

Others have even gone a step further and created an entire dance based around Ruto's Isiolo road mastery, with others going as far as printing t-shirts emblazoned with the President's viral messaging.

For example, popular TikToker Freddie Carlo Comedian, who shared a video of himself dancing to the Ruto audio, has already accumulated 140,000 'LIKES' just two days after publishing the video. The video currently stands at a staggering 1.6 million views.

Popular comedian Mokaya, too, jumped on the trend and created a video that depicts President Ruto memorising local roads before hitting the road to meet the people.

His video has gone super viral - accumulating over 200,000 'LIKES' and approaching nearly 2 million views.

The memes, which have ricocheted off the Kenyan internet for the last several days, appear to underscore Gachagua's understanding of Ruto's political subterfuge - to win the masses and endear himself to them.

Ruto loves to properly master the area's complex road networks and then uses his mastery to dumbfound the crowds and draw cheers from a stumped audience.

Still commenting on the Ruto-esque phenomena, Gachagua said, "This man conned a community. He conned all of us - our bishops, our reverends, our pastors. That is the same script. If you fall for him, you will cry just like the people of the Mountain."