Ruto running away from Gen-Z issues, which could spoil 2027

President William Ruto has elected to address unrest by grafting borrowed Opposition politicians into Cabinet, and beginning early campaigns for the 2027 presidential election.

Apart from a reconditioned Cabinet, other interventions include a ubiquitous media charm offensive and fresh campaign type of rallies and promises across the country.

There is also refurbishing of the president’s UDA party. This involves a rethink on difficult Mt Kenya shareholders in the party and government. The Mountain-leaning Secretary General, Cleophas Malala, has fallen. The ANC party that Malala was borrowed from is in the final stages of being swallowed.

Soon it will be wiped off the surface of the earth. Its entire leadership is getting politically neutered. Together with former party leader, Prime CS Musalia Mudavadi, they will follow Malala into political oblivion.  

President Ruto is testing his electoral machine through dry runs in the media and loud forays into the countryside. But does he sidestep the real problem?

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Is he running away from the Gen-Z issues that have generated panic in high places? Our elders in Emanyulia say if you have scrotal elephantiasis, don’t pretend that you only have a slight dislocation of the hip. You face the thing squarely.  

Elephantiasis is a staggering malady, even political elephantiasis. This terrible affliction knows how to find delicate places in members of the male humanoid species. Once lodged there, it attacks as it grows. In the fullness of time, it leads to unsightly football-like deformity in the vital zones.

It is attended by extreme pain, stench and mental anguish. I will spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say medics have told us that this thing is a massive, hard and rough painful matter. You don’t want to see it, even in someone else.  

Yet those afflicted by such maladies, even if they are only political, must squarely face the hard facts. They don’t sidestep them, by pretending that the problem lies elsewhere. Surgical removal of the offended tissues and reconstructive surgery is the solution.

You will not achieve this if you sidestep the problem. Equally significant, you do not graft back to the body dead tissues that were removed. Yet, does President Ruto seem to graft back odoriferous dead tissues?

Does he stitch others to other parts of the body, through ambassadorial appointments, and other postings in government? Does he invite his country to doubt him? 

Such is the crossroads at which Africa is today, with Kenya in the lead. The continent is at a tipping point, from coast to coast. The civic fundamentals are changing. The youth want to redefine their countries, by thrusting them into accountable spaces that will remove them from Third World rot. The political leadership refuses this reality.

The youth are rising up against political bad manners previously been accepted as normal. The political class is digging in. In Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa, the youth are restless. But leaders are telling them that they are playing with fire. Others are saying, “Enough is enough.” 

We do not know what the youth and police will do in Nairobi on the dreaded August 8. The youth are saying through social media platforms that they will be on the rampage. State apparatus are promising to hit hard. Never mind the dozens of lives lost so far, and the unaccounted scores. President Ruto says he has had enough. But if he has, he has so far done little to address the concerns. 

Look, the president declined to sign the vexed Finance Bill 2024–25. Yet the Bill is now the gleeful excuse for everything the government has failed to do over the past 18 months. He mourns over it everywhere, all the time. This unceasing lamentation on the Bill can only generate fresh resentment.

Second, President Ruto dismissed his entire Cabinet, yet he has grafted back parts that were excised for being diseased. He then moves on to brandish the iron fist in a glove, even as dozens of abducted youth remain uncounted for.  

Deployment of the police and the military against dissent could prove grossly counterproductive. For, unrest sits deep inside dissatisfied populations.

You cannot sell them fear and blank sweeteners forever. The government needs to rethink its purpose as a service entity, and its attitude towards unhappy citizens. If not, the panicky early preparations for 2027 are in vain. 

Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke