A sulky leadership at this time, a likely recipe for doom

Sometimes the most innocuous things in life are pointers to real life situations, but the link is never easily discernible.

Take a magnet, for instance, it is simply described as a material that produces a magnetic field, but what I clearly remember from those many years when I was pretending to study physics is that magnets have two poles; the North and the South. My physics teacher only succeeded in making me understand that like-poles repel while opposite poles attract.

That brings me to the country’s top guys, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto. They are like the North and South poles of magnets. Reacting to suggestions that the Jubilee administration was facing an imminent break-up, Ruto haughtily told his detractors that eventuality was highly unlikely.

Nevertheless, elements have their own way of breaking magnetic fields, and quite a few are gathering in the Rift Valley. Somehow, the North-South poles in the Robert Mugabe, Joyce Mujuru and Yoweri Museveni, Kizza Besigye equations turned to North-North and South–South poles; the results are there for all to see.

President Kenyatta was brought up protected from the rough and tumble of this hostile world. He has led a sheltered life, away from harm, and never had to toil for anything.

He never slugged it out with tough kids from a tough neighbourhood and he did not have to make tough decisions; what with servants at his beck and call! That explains why he is sociable until pressure is mounted on him, and then he is likely to fly off the handle.

He once lost his cool at a press conference in 2012 and banged tables. When the Garissa University College attack happened, he was ready to break the law over the matter of police recruits until sense finally prevailed.

Ruto grew up in penury. He had to fight for everything. He is a self-proclaimed hustler. The DP appears to be in a permanent ‘combat mode’ and the opposition brings out the worst in him; needling him, cajoling him into awkward situations which he doesn’t seem to realise because he obliges them at every turn; to his detriment.

It amazes me the number of promises Ruto has made in the name of the government while crisscrossing the country, some of which he has no wherewithal of honouring.

Kenyatta on the other hand is cunningly non-committal and where he has made a promise, except on the safety of Kenyans, he has always endeavoured to follow through in the shortest time possible.

In effect, Ruto has been left to do the government’s dirty work, taking the blame for everything that doesn’t work since he can be identified with it. One only needs to take a look at the social media and caricatures of Ruto to appreciate the intensity of sentiment against him.

When Aden Duale, the DP’s bosom buddy averred that Dadaab refugee camp was teeming with Al Shabaab, Ruto took up the refrain and made it a personal crusade. Without establishing a direct link between terrorists and Dadaab, he is determined that the unwanted guests must leave. Even if it means they have to face the Al Shabaab butchers.

Conveniently forgotten is the Geneva Convention. Even the tripartite agreement between Kenya, Somalia and the UNHRC specifies that any repatriation must be voluntary. Is the solution to our problems getting out of international agreements in a huff?

There was this attempt to get out of the ICC that hit a snag. We tried to come up with the African court but the idea got stymied; now we are intent on trashing the Geneva Convention. Can Kenya afford a sulky leadership without portending evil for us?

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