Ruto leadership style exposed as former trusted allies turn bitter foes

The bare-knuckle attacks and mudslinging on the person of the president that began with the Azimio-led opposition has interestingly taken a new twist as those now throwing mud at him are no longer the political opposition but his erstwhile former top lieutenants who have fallen from grace and metamorphosed into his sharpest critics overnight. 

One only has to look into the scathing sobriquets and alleged misdemeanors allegedly deliberately perpetuated by the president to see just how far and serious these criticisms are helping to disrobe a once opaque institution to the consternation of many Kenyans. 

Meanwhile the once “fire-breathing” Azimio opposition has fallen into the political clutches of the Kenya Kwanza government and seldom remember that they are the opposition; notwithstanding the fact that it is commonly known that their key members are part of the current government with ministerial portfolios. 

They gallantly fight off any government tag by association or fact. Their once fiery criticism of the government is now a muted complaint to no one in particular when there is concerted hue and cry from the public on public burning matters.

When the bitter fallout between President Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua unfolded, many critics may have read his political tomb with the epitaph, “life threw a big chance at him and he squandered it!” 

Gachagua, according to his detractors, should have been in a dark corner somewhere in Wamunyoro wringing his hands in self-pity and licking his political wounds. 

Maybe Monsieur Gachagua missed out on all that plus the part of the script that read, “stripped of all trappings of power and office, he would be deprived of influence and relevance.” 

Rigathi has turned out to be a thorn in the flesh of the establishment with numerous vicious inroads into the shortcomings of the Kenya Kwanza regime in a way that the opposition might have never done. 

Gachagua, in time after time, he has delved into unsubstantiated details and insights into the day to day working workings of the president, and thereby laying bare the shortcomings and decision-making processes that form and influence government policy and executive decisions over numerous issues. 

He has chosen thorny issues such as the bills that brought the Social Health Authority (SHA) to life and its lack of a legal procedural approach when it was brought to light, such as the exclusion of the office of the Attorney General in its formulation and drafting.

Over a week ago, another high ranking government official was unilaterally fired when his name was dropped as the president reshuffled his cabinet. 

The President said Muturi had sacked himself by refusing to attend cabinet meetings. 

Bedan Justin Muturi, formerly the Attorney General (AG) who was relieved of duty in 2024 was reinstated to the government as the Minister for Public Service. 

An astute lawyer Muturi was the Uhuru-era Speaker of the National Assembly and it shocked many when he catapulted into the William Ruto camp in the final days of the Uhuru regime. He says he was poached by Ruto - he must have been a great player as we see in soccer. 

His was a bold move and it paid off handsomely when he was rewarded with the Attorney General position in President Ruto’s first cabinet. However, the Gen-Z riots that rocked the boat of Kenya Kwanza saw almost the whole cabinet summarily relieved of duty. It also brought out a hidden side of Justin Muturi that few Kenyans were privy to. 

In a statement made to DCI after his son was abducted at the height of the Gen Z demonstrations, and later released at his intervention. Muturi said the National Intelligence Service (NIS) took his son Leslie Muturi at Kilimani suburb on June 22, 2024, and only released him after President Ruto intervened by calling NIS boss Noordin Haji. 

When he made this bold allegation, he opened a Pandora’s box about the possible involvement of government security operatives in the wave of abductions that hit the country after the Gen Z demonstrations.

In the world of politics, perceptions seem to matter more than the truth. Currently the media and public have been treated to numerous perceptions and allegations as political lines are redrawn and political daggers are drawn out. 

Gachagua has been trading barbs and jabs with the president ever since he was relieved of duty and as time goes by he has become bolder.

 In his last interview with a local media station, Gachagua stated that he had come forth to “set the record straight over utterances by the president on his person.” 

Gachagua minced no words when he claimed that the presidency had been made a conduit for personal enrichment and he tried to corroborate his statement with several anecdotes. 

Reading from a similar script, Justin Muturi sensationally claimed in a recent public media interview that he was on more than one occasion arm-twisted by the president to be involved in shadowy deals, unsuccessfully. 

Muturi and Gachagua paint a picture of the Commander-in-Chief of the country using his esteemed offices to cut deals for his individual benefit. 

Gachagua alluded to the contribution Kenya’s highest office made in destabilizing the security and safety of the Eastern Africa region by putting first his individual commercial interests but to the detriment of citizens of the affected nations who continue to die and suffer immensely. 

Gachagua audaciously called for the international community to place sanctions on the president to stabilize the region’s security and guarantee its peace.

Gachagua went further to allege that the Head of State is given to compulsive lying, which he claims is so rampant, it borders on a mental disorder. 

He cited the construction of the road that passes through Wamunyoro village, Gachagua’s home turf which the President claimed to have constructed. He vehemently refuted the claim saying it was done during President Kenyatta’s government. 

The former deputy president alleged that the President is overreaching and a micro-manager in the way in which he alleged a conspiracy to have a shadowy Russian billionaire use the country as a money laundering pad under the guise of a massive campaign for fifteen billion trees planting and the former AG and Public Service CS, Justin Muturi frustrated the scheme by refusing to meet the alleged Russians in the lobby of an airport in Dubai. Justin Muturi alleged this too was a fraud and flatly objected.

The President has no regard for the letter and process of the law, insisted both Muturi and Gachagua.

When Justin Muturi was the AG, Gachagua claims the President ordered for funds from the Settlement Fund Trust (SFT) meant for the resettlement of the landless in Kenya, to be used to procure eleven thousand acres of land for an industrial park in Naivasha without the due process being followed for both the purchase of the land and use of funds. 

As a witness to this episode that played out in Naivasha, Gachagua said that Justin Muturi did not budge. Muturi was also mentioned by Gachagua for refusing to sign cabinet bills, in this case from the health ministry, given to him by the immediate former Health Cabinet Secretary, as they had not originated from his office and he had no input to the process that birthed the bills yet they required him to append his signature to the same; he objected in totally.

When fertilizer was donated by Russia to Kenya, it was blended with other fertilizers by a “proxy” of the President, and later sold back to the government at market cost, alleges Gachagua who says he was privy to the whole affair. 

The sale yielded billions of shillings and the beneficiaries are anyone’s guess. He alleges that the President and Head of Public Service are the ones who run the Ministry of Agriculture and any Cabinet Secretary posted there are just but “flower girls.” 

Further Gachagua claims that the President has turned out to be the “principal procurement officer” of the Kenya Government who is sacrificing better governance for the country at the altar of personal profit as he has turned the whole government machinery into a commercial venture.

Muturi also went on a marathon interview to allegedly expose the rot in the government at the highest level. The former AG alluded to having refused to append his approval to the continued rip-off at the Arror and Kimwarer dams. 

He claimed that Kenya had already lost over Ksh.38 billion in the scam and he could not watch more money sank therein. He said he refused to sign certain bills emanating from the Ministry of Health last year concerning the legal set-up of the Social Health Authority among others. 

Former Cabinet Secretary Muturi went on to speak about a “timid cabinet,” so scared that it might be find out they are having contact with him, according to Muturi, the President has them under a tight watch and leash. 

Muturi’s parting shot was that the president is “incorrigibly corrupt” and hence “incompetent to lead” this nation.

The so-called “small men” around State House, Farouk Kibet and Dennis Itumbi are “no-small men” but behemoths who silently stride the corridors of power unchecked, claims Gachagua. So potent is their power that he alleges that Farouk not only had the audacity to come over to his office to run it with a toll station but also order him to boot. 

In his words “Farouk Kibet is not a small person, ministers tremble in his presence. He is a co-president in this country and everyone including the police IG and Cabinet Ministers report to him.” Gachagua alleges that Itumbi keeps the President’s itinerary to the extent that he would barge in to stop a meeting between the President and his deputy when signaled to do so. 

In all these circumstances, as alleged by the two former close lieutenants of the president, they have laid bare the goings-on of the house at the top of the hill, otherwise known as State House. 

The President and his top aides’ actions and words are important as they come to bear on the nation either positively or negatively. 

Currently, more than ever before, the spotlight on public service leaves very little hidden as more hitherto opaque public offices coming under close scrutiny by the public. This is because public office is held on behalf of the public towards the facilitation of services and public goods to the general public. 

Constructive scrutiny of all public offices is warranted but even more, accountability, justice and responsibility are core values that should be espoused by all who espouse to the highest office in the land.   

All must keep in mind the fact that all actions and motivations of all governments must be for the good and benefit of the people and not a few individuals. 

These alleged sneak post-views of the finer inner workings of the president’s office makes the public question and assess the suitability, competence, integrity and validity of the entire system including the holder.