A few weeks back I argued that President William Ruto is quickly running into a dictator’s information problem – whereby his underlings have an incentive to keep lying to him in order to demonstrate their loyalty. If anyone doubted the president’s predicament, the government’s reaction to the statement from Catholic Bishops on Thursday should put the matter to rest. The Church merely pointed out facts that are common knowledge to all thinking Kenyans. The government’s word can longer be trusted. Too many Kenyans are getting abducted and some killed by state agents. The economy is on its knees. Taxes are too high, only matched by the high levels of graft and incompetence by senior members of the Kenya Kwanza administration. These are basic facts that no one can hide from.
What did we get from the government in response? A barrage of statements from different offices that betrayed the government’s insecurity about its position.
One thing the administration should learn is that you cannot fool all the people all the time. The government has not been acting like it knows what Kenyans are going through. And so it has forced the Church’s hand in asking for reforms to how the state relates with Kenyans.
These are serious matters. I still maintain that the 2022 election was the beginning of our collective liberation. We shifted from a politics of ethnic mobilisation, to one governed by the management of the economy. President Ruto seems to have forgotten the content of his campaign. Kenyans actually believed him. Yet he has governed in the same old mold of ethnic mobilisation and the belief that as long as ethnic chiefs eat everyone else will remain quiet. It is high time the president and his entire team understood that the old world is gone. Kenyans want a working economy. They want a government that respects their rights as people. And they want a government that takes itself seriously and does not engage in bald-faced lies without care.
No amount of statements can make Kenyans forget the failures they see in our schools, hospitals, government offices, and on our roads.
I do not expect the president and his supporters in parliament and the judiciary to change course. We seem to have reached a point of no return. Just like before June, our ruling elites are set in their ways and will need a much stronger nudge than statements. The clock is ticking.
The writer is a professor at Georgetown University
