Of 'murder plot' and why Ruto must always speak with caution

Democracy has demonstrated over and over again that those that emerge as great leaders are those that used their words prudently to inspire, console, and to rally their country toward a particular course.

Abraham Lincoln is viewed as a historical martyr in part because of his now-famous Gettysburg, which he delivered in Gettysburg Pennsylvania just a couple of months after his Union Armies had defeated the Confederate Forces.

For the avoidance of doubt, I want to draw parallels between President William Ruto and President Abraham Lincoln. Like Abe, Dr Ruto came into the Presidency when the country was shrilly crying out for leadership.

After he defeated the Southern Confederate Army, Lincoln would have chosen to chest thump, to stage a lap of honour but he chose to rally his countrymen and women behind his country's highest ideal; democracy and inclusivity. "These men shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that the Government of the people... shall not perish from the face of the earth."

This is where I want to express my anxiety and impatience with President Ruto. The otherwise skilful politician has let his words not mean anything to so many Kenyans since he became president. Do not get me wrong, I am not looking for an angelic President Ruto.

IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati. [File, Standard]

It is these daunting challenges that do not give the president the latitude to voice his every thought and disappointment casually. As the Head of State, the president must be restrained in his public utterances lest he chips away his political capital and ends up spending the remainder of his first term firefighting.

To say that certain individuals were plotting to abduct and eliminate the outgoing IEBC boss without accompanying it with the necessary investigation of those individuals in a process that is public and transparent, is a political bastardisation that should not be left to stand.

The mere fact that the president's predecessor was willing to facilitate a smooth transition in itself should be an incentive enough for the president to shift his sight from the rearview mirror into the road ahead, for 50 million Kenyans have entrusted their fate in his hands. As the good book cautions us in James 1:19, "Our leaders must be swift to hear, slow to speak, and even slower to wrath."

-Mr Kidi is a governance and policy expert. [email protected]