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NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS

The Nairobian

Do whatever you want with DP but please don't divide Kenyans

Columnists

By Kidi Mwaga | Oct 07, 2024

**President William Ruto and his deputy Gigathi Gachagua at a past function**. [File, Standard]

If the calls of impeachment are followed to their logical end, one thing is certain; the impeachment will be a perfectly executed mutually assured destruction by the erstwhile political lovebirds - the President and his deputy. A successful impeachment will mean that the deputy president will have to forget about ‘Murima’ for he would be effectively extinguished politically. Photos of him taking a morning walk will be of him in Wamunyoro village wondering how the honeymoon ended so first. This crisis will make and extinguish political careers.

However, the persistent question is, has private commercial interests and short-term political postures supplanted public interest in William Ruto’s state?

That is how it appears to most Kenyans after the series of policy intervention blunders. Let’s start with the Hustler fund. The execution was so chaotic. In less than six months, media reports were indicating that over Sh3 billion had not been repaid. Then there was the edible oil saga, then came the fake fertiliser scandal, which a little bird says was executed from the inner sanctum of power and the CS was a mere fall guy.

Difficult to believe but as our people would say, where there is smoke there are certainly smouldering embers. Then of all the things Dr Ruto could do to his hustlers, he gave them the Finance Bill 2024 and what he had in return are the now famous Gen Z protests.

The people have pleaded with Ruto to be half the President he promised he would be, but he has not. The management of the country is now in the hands of people whose private interests are placed above the interest of 50 million Kenyans. Or how else would you explain the Adani deal and the now disastrous Social Health Authority migration?

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For Ruto to want us, the people, to clap for him for the impeding removal of Gachagua is, to quote one blogger “to think we are all wearing Kaunda suits to prove our Pan African credentials”. What Gachagua is accused of, the Kenya Kwanza or is it broad-based Cabinet is guilty of in entirety. If its tribalism and ethnic vitriol tell me which Kenyan politician is clean in that regard. Just one.

Even right now the government has deployed clueless bloggers to run a poorly crafted propaganda that Luo, Luhya and Kalenjin must unite. Why should those in critical positions of government openly seek to stoke ethnic cleavages when the people are suffering from hunger and poor governance? Do my brothers from the Rift Valley pay less for bread? Certainly no. It is the folly of politics of ethnic trade off.

While the people delude themselves that there is a benevolent state interested in governing and giving the people predictable secure future, the priority of those with power and the legitimacy to meet the needs of the people are flashy little trinkets. So instead of working for the people, they are busy engaging in actions that make the likes of Thakshin Shinawatra look like saints. For the record, the Shinawatras, both Thakshin and his sister Yingluck, remain the worst examples of conflict of interest in public office.

So whether UDA wants to carve Gachagua as a sacrifice unto the political gods or whether they want to carve him as a carcass for the political hounds, we must reject the attempt to blindside us, the people, into factional wars within the governing coalition. We must remind them that Adani deal is an unintelligent attempt to subcontract our sovereignty and security for nothing but little alms for those we elected to protect us. Even if Kenya Kwanza is imploding out of indigestion, we will not let them blindside us.

Together with their sidekicks, they can vomit on our shoes for all we care, but studiously we must remind them that the voter is supreme. In unison, we the people say, Reject Adani, Reject Adani. To hell with unbridled greed.

Mr Mwaga is the convener of Inter-parties Youth Forum. [email protected]