Ruto's fall guy: Why Uhuru is sending shivers down Ruto's spine

Former President Uhuru Kenyatta and President William Ruto. [File, Standard]

Outrage greeted President William Ruto's latest assault on the character of former President Uhuru Kenyatta when he labelled him a "rebel leader", a tag they say pained his predecessor, a lawless leader associated with either rag-tag armies or armed militia groups.

Uhuru might have left office more than four years ago, but he is not leaving President William Ruto’s lips anytime soon, as his predecessor anchors his reelection campaign on bashing Uhuru at every opportunity.

The cascade of attacks is relentless and intensifying, and Ruto’s Uhuru mania is real and appears to be eating him from the inside. The president views Uhuru as the dark horse threatening his reelection bid, and as a result, a smear campaign against him is a key plank of his reelection agenda.

In the last two weeks, he has spent an inordinate amount of time blaming, badmouthing, and belittling the former Head of State, relegating his opponents in the Linda Mwanainchi Movement and the United Opposition to collateral in his bigger fight against a man he fears is the architect of the push to unseat him from power.

Former deputy president Rigathi Gachagua responded by telling Ruto to stop using Uhuru as his scapegoat to mask his leadership failures: "The leaders tasked by 55 million Kenyans to remove from office require no sponsorship from Uhuru."

Several opposition politicians joked about what they described as the extreme paradox of Ruto's statement, pointing out that Ruto himself spent a large part of his tenure as deputy President acting as a de facto "rebel leader" within Kenyatta’s Jubilee government before taking power.

Others, like Othaya MP aspirant Antony Gitonga, stated it was fundamentally wrong and unstatesmanlike for a sitting president to continuously launch personal verbal assaults against a retired president.

Jubilee deputy party leader Fred Matiang'i also hit out at Ruto, saying It's a paradox that he remarked on the same day Kenyatta accepted a High Court ruling barring retired Presidents from holding formal party office and confirmed he would hand over the Jubilee Party leadership in compliance with the law.

“A rebel is not a person who disagrees with the Government,” Matiang'i said: “Political disagreement is not rebellion. Criticism of an administration is not rebellion. Lawful political participation is not rebellion.”

Observers, however, claim Uhuru has been turned into a scapegoat to mask Ruto’s own failures and is also a dark art political strategy to present the opposition to Kenyans as a political project.

Reading from his latest working tour in Nyanza, one thing is certain: Uhuru is living rent-free in Ruto’s mind and has occupied a large chunk of the president’s brain, or perhaps, the single most important agenda that Kenyans must listen to as part of his campaign manifesto for the next general elections.

The supporting political cast of these comprehensive attacks are Ruto’s coattailers from ODM and UDA who are choiring the anti-Uhuru jibe to residents.

Seldom has any political rally during the trip passed by without a comprehensive mention of Uhuru. If not trashing his track record in a government where Ruto was the second-most powerful figure, they are dragging his name into the activities of the opposition.

Yesterday, the trend continued as the president launched a fresh wave of political salvos at Uhuru during his visit to Migori. While addressing residents in Awendo, Ruto described Uhuru as a failure plotting to mask his record by unleashing opponents to attack him.

He described the opposition as Uhuru’s puppets sent to derail him from his agenda. “They are puppets who are doing the bidding for their sponsor. Their sponsor failed to deliver on infrastructure...he failed in education, in Universal healthcare,” said Ruto.

He also faulted Uhuru over the country’s debt burden and claimed that he had found Sh1 trillion in debts for infrastructure alone. Despite this, however, reports indicate his government has borrowed more than Uhuru’s administration.

On Tuesday, the president described Uhuru as a rebel leader, a term observers believe should not just be wished away as a roadside talk.

In other countries littered with rebel leaders are considered opponents of the government with backing of armed groups. Governments respond to them with state violence, arrests and detention. If he opts to borrow a leaf from other countries that have had rebel leaders, tough times await Uhuru.

In this new trend, the president’s coattailers have also joined the anti-Uhuru train, using every opportunity on a podium to vilify the former president. Just like Christians curse the devil in nearly all their prayers, Uhuru is the recurring punchline in the president and his allies' speeches.

In Nyanza, ODM leaders led by party leader Oburu Oginga, chairperson Gladys Wanga and Treasury CS John Mbadi have anchored Ruto’s reelection campaign on an attack on Uhuru.

Here, Uhuru has been portrayed by ODM leaders as an enemy of the people. A man who promised Nyanza heaven during the famous Handshake with the late Raila Odinga but delivered peanuts in development.

ODM National Chairperson Gladys Wanga criticised Uhuru Kenyatta over his relationship with Raila Odinga during the handshake period, claiming that the former President failed to give the region adequate representation despite working with the ODM leader.

“In the handshake between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila, we asked him to give us even one minister from this region, but he never gave us. Now he is with Orengo, promising them the presidency. I am asking this: how can he be in a position to give them when he was President and he never gave Raila? Now he is retired. Which seat can he give people like Orengo?” Wanga posed.

Wanga said the region should remain aligned with the broad-based government because of the development and opportunities she said have been brought to the area.

Analysts contend that Ruto’s obsession with Uhuru stems from the fact that Uhuru wields significant influence and the government is fretting over the unknown.

“Uhuru has a big political constituency, and Kenyans may be nostalgic about his reign. Remember his message during the 2022 campaigns? He could repeat the same message and tell Kenyans, ‘I told you.’

“The strategy might be to deflate Uhuru before he becomes part of the 2027 team. Keep him busy and distract him from 2027. He will fight to save his legacy instead of joining like-minded politicians,” argues Prof XN Iraki, University of Nairobi researcher.

The analyst believes that it is also part of a strategy to make the opposition appear to be without a foothold. “By labelling him the sponsor, the opposition looks spineless. The fear is that Uhuru could endorse someone, and that could change the political calculus”.

Joseph Simekha, a Political Strategist and Governance Expert, claims the attacks on Uhuru are a fallback plan for the Ruto administration after failing to convince him to back Ruto’s presidency.

“President William Ruto and his political associates are a very worried lot because of their deep and widespread unpopularity across Kenya. After failing to persuade Uhuru to change his mind about his assessment of Ruto’s leadership and integrity, their strategy is to manufacture a figure of hate against whom they can emotionally mobilise and charge what they perceive as their political bases to solidify support for Ruto,” he says.

But the attacks on Uhuru did not start this year or intensify in the last few weeks alone; his name has been lingering in government corridors and has taken the blame for nearly all the woes that the administration has faced.

In 2024 and at the height of a Gen Z pushback against the government, Ruto pointed an accusing finger at Uhuru for allegedly financing the protests.

Behind the scenes, the president and his allies have long seen Uhuru as their biggest threat to his 2027 reelection bid. And he is not sitting back and assuming. He has gone bare-knuckle against the former president in a dangerous escalation with implications for the country’s stability and national security.

But as this happens, a steady growth in the opposition wave against the president is building, albeit with whispers of their own internal wrangles over the strategy to unseat Ruto.

In recent weeks, the Linda Mwanainchi brigade has taken the country by storm, challenging the president’s support in key voting blocs, and throwing government operatives back to the drawing board.

At the apex is Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna, who has emerged as a potential leading candidate to challenge Ruto’s hold on the country’s highest office.

While the Sifuna-led group is mounting what observers believe is a credible challenge to Ruto’s throne, for Ruto, however, the buck stops with Uhuru. He views his former teammate during their Jubilee administration as the force behind Sifuna, a man fueling his potential collapse from glory.

In Western, however, the anti-Uhuru theme is dominant as the president’s foot soldiers unleash an avalanche of attacks against the former Head of State as part of the strategy to pummel Sifuna’s support.

On Saturday, Ruto’s allies led by Kakamega Governor Fernandes Barasa, Bungoma Governor Kenneth Lusaka and Senator Wafula Wakoli urged residents to reject the alleged push by Uhuru to build a unit to upset Ruto in polls.

Barasa claimed that the former President could not deliver the presidency to his political allies after failing to secure it for the late former Prime Minister Raila Odinga while he was in office.

“Uhuru is lying to our brothers and the opposition that he will deliver the presidency and yet he failed to deliver to our late Raila Odinga when he was in power and had all the necessary instruments of power. How will he help them to defeat Ruto when he is outside the government if he is not playing games?” Barasa posed.

For Ruto, however, the decision by the courts to slam the brakes on Uhuru’s participation in Jubilee is a welcome move. He appeared to celebrate it yesterday in Awendo, capping off his speech with,"...we must respect each other".

Despite this, however, questions remain about whether the attacks will die down as Jubilee undergoes a fresh leadership realignment.