DP William Ruto’s 10 days on the cross as 2022 fight takes shape

Deputy President William Ruto meets the new security team at his official residence in Karen, Nairobi on August 30, 2021. [DPPS, Standard]

 Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i is showing up at a parliamentary committee to answer questions on the security of Deputy President William Ruto today will cap what has arguably been 10 days on the cross for the besieged DP.

With each passing day, and since President Uhuru Kenyatta’s pet project - Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) - collapsed, Ruto’s tribulations have been growing, the last nine days perhaps being his worst in recent times.

The downgrading of his security has shaken politicians, with Dr Matiang’i expected to shed more light before the National Assembly Administration and National Security Committee today.

There is also a push to have the Senate investigate the matter, but Ruto yesterday termed the move a waste of “parliamentary time.”

“The AP is a professional security service and those who think it is a downgrade are wrong,” the DP downplayed a week full of adversity on Twitter.

Ruto started on a high, touring Mt Kenya after the Court of Appeal declared the BBI unconstitutional.

A day before that, he called the Press at his official Karen residence in Nairobi, to gloat over the loss of President Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga at the courts.

Speaking in Kirinyaga, Ruto credited divine intervention for the failure of BBI. “We can have as much power as we wish, but God is the defender of the defenceless,” Ruto chided promoters of the push to amend the Constitution.

A section of pro-BBI leaders warned the DP against celebrating the BBI loss too soon. Their counsel was nothing close to the storm that awaited Ruto in the days that followed.

Monday came furiously for the second in command. At a youth function at the National Council of Churches of Kenya, ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru set the tone.

“Do not be led down the garden path. Do not be lied to. You must expose these peddlers for who they are; snake oil salesmen who will go to any extent to gain political power,” he said, criticising the DP’s politics including his bottom-up economic model.

In Naivasha, Ruto opted out of an exchange with Mucheru, saying he had no time to respond to his critics.

But that very night, the DP would suffer blows that would force a response out of him. At a meeting with editors in State House, Nairobi, an agitated President Kenyatta dared his deputy to quit the government.

Though somewhat holding back in his approach, the president illustrated how it had become difficult to work with his deputy.

“It would be an honourable thing that if you are not happy with it (government), step aside and take your agenda to the people. That is what happens in a democracy, you cannot ride on what we have done and talk a different language on the side,” said Uhuru.

Ruto and his allies spent Tuesday hitting back at the president, though he, too, was seemingly reserved in his attack. “I am a man of vision and I have no space to retreat and the luxury to surrender,” the DP said at the burial service of Mahoo MCA Ronald Sagurani in Taita Taveta, a service momentarily disrupted when police insisted on enforcing Covid-19 containment measures. Ruto’s troubles did not end there. As though keen to further his nightmare, lawmakers affiliated to the president threatened to impeach the DP, and his base hit back, daring them to bring it on.

Thursday was tough for Ruto, with the State’s withdrawal of his elite security team at his official and private residences, replacing them with officers from the Administration Police.

“This is the latest instalment in a sustained and systematic effort to undermine the DP’s personal security in pursuit of political vendetta, and is consistent with a strategy to expose the DP of the Republic to personal harm,” Ruto’s communication secretary David Mugonyi protested, and the DP’s allies, too, condemned the move.

Inspector-General of Police Hilary Mutyambai termed Ruto’s security redeployment a normal procedure in the protection of VIPs.

“Today, August 26, the Security of Government Buildings has been deployed to provide general security in the official residence of HE the Deputy President from General Service Unit (GSU),” said Mutyambai in a statement signed by police spokesman Bruno Shiosho.

Through his chief of staff Ken Osinde, Ruto protested to the IG on Friday, highlighting instances in which he claimed his life was in danger.

“On numerous occasions, persons well known to you have publicly stated that the Deputy President will not be there in 2022. You have refused to act upon reports made to you on the implications of such remarks for the security, safety and well-being of the Deputy President,” Osinde told Mutyambai.

Still coming to terms with his security’s withdrawal, Ruto would suffer attacks from a new front on Friday. In an interview with vernacular radio stations from Mt Kenya, Raila joined the president in daring the DP to quit.

During Saturday’s burial of Nominated Senator Victor Prengei, Ruto downplayed his security ordeal, saying he was too busy to engage those responsible for ensuring his security.

He would still follow the same script of dismissing his security’s reshuffle on Sunday, terming the move a supremacy contest he was not interested in.

The DP said he was comfortable with any security detail assigned to his residence. Speaking after attending church service at St Augustine Catholic Church in Bahati, Nakuru County, Ruto said it was okay that the General Service Unit was withdrawn. “Even if the Administration Police deployed are withdrawn, I will take the G4S security.”

And on Monday, he hosted his new security detail for tea, to show he was good with whatever changes.