Tag Archives: william Ruto

ruto is a disappointment over mau

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Leaders are meant to lead – to set the agenda and make people believe that what is good for them is exactly what they need. On this count, Agriculture minister William Ruto has failed as a leader. On the issue of Mau Forest, he is increasingly sounding like a mad populist out to gain political mileage at the expense of millions of Kenyans – including those that he is purportedly protecting.

That deforestation in the Mau is causing the drying up of vital water sources – 12 rivers included – is no longer contested, not even by Mr. Ruto himself. I therefore do not understand why he is still against the eviction of those who illegally acquired land in the forest. The government has already agreed to compensate small holders (with title deeds) who were cheated into buying land in the forest. But wealthy Kenyans who acquired land in the Mau due to their connections to the Moi Administration should not be given a cent. In any case they should be investigated.

I say it is time that Mr. Ruto acted as a leader and made the case to his constituents that saving the Mau is in their best interest. This is the least he can do if he really aspires to be seen as a respectable national leader rather than an over-glorified tribal chief.

ruto saga continues….

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Today’s Nation quotes a Steadman poll that found that a majority of Kenyans want the Agriculture minister, William Ruto, out of office pending investigations into what really happened with the government’s strategic maize reserve at the National Cereals and Produce Board. Given the accusations and counter-accusations flying around regarding the maize scandal it is hard to establish who is telling the truth. Last week Ruto survived a censure motion in parliament when 119 of his colleagues voted in his support, against a mere 22 against him. But the fact that more than half of those polled want him out should signal to the minister that may be it is time he stepped aside to clear his name before resuming duties as a cabinet minister.

Plus this story is not going away any time soon. Today’s Nation also has a story about Jirongo’s denial of Karua’s (Justice Minister) supposed proposition to Ruto regarding the 2012 elections. The Lugari MP (Cyrus Jirongo) insists that his mediation between Karua and Ruto at his house in Muthaiga had nothing to do with a 2012 political deal between the two ministers but was an effort to try and find ways of resettling IDPs back in the Rift Valley, Ruto’s backyard. But if Jirongo is to be believed, Ruto demanded that any talks with Karua were contingent on the Judiciary dropping a land case in which he is implicated.

And so Ruto continues to be entangled in one scandle after another and it seems like the more he defends himself the more his detractors come out with even more damaging allegations. I think that for the sake of the coalition government’s cohesiveness and to avoid unncessary distractions it is imperative that Ruto steps aside – like the majority of Kenyans want. If he gets cleared he can return to the cabinet but if not he should be kept out of the cabinet.

And ethnicity should not be part of this. There is nothing that grants William Ruto an entitlement to the leadership of the communities residing in the Rift Valley province – just like Mudavadi or Raila are not entitled in Western or Nyanza respectively. This maneno of running back to ethnicity when politicians find themselves in trouble should be put to an end. Let every man carry his own cross.

getting to the bottom of the maize scandal

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So it turns out that Ababu Namwamba’s sensational claim in parliament that first lady Lucy Kibaki was linked to a company that illegal traded in maize for Kenya’s starving millions was based on false documents. And the same is also true of Bonny Khalwale’s accusations of agriculture minister William Ruto. Whether this is the truth or not we may never know. Kenyan politicians have a going price and retractions of statements (true and otherwise) have been made before. And why accuse the first lady and a whole cabinet minister with false documents? Messrs Namwamba and Khalwale are not village idiots. They must have known what they were talking about. For now I shall remain skeptical of these retractions and say that where there is smoke there is fire. If Mr. Ruto wants to clear his name he should tell us who traded in the maize, it is his ministry after all. And if the president wants his wife’s name cleared he should also tell us the truth. Everyone high up in government must know who these thieves are.

Millions of Kenyans face starvation if they don’t get relief food and so it galls me when I read that people are stealing the same relief food and being allowed to get away with it. Since when did we come to accept that Kenyan lives – no matter how poor our citizens may be – are worth sacrificing so that an already filthy rich cabal of thieves can continue enriching themselves? Where is the anger in the media, in the church, on the streets and among the civil society? Do we realise what we are doing to ourselves? Kenyans are dying!!!

Does it cease to be a crime just because someone who speaks your language did it? Does it cease to be a crime when it is Kibaki and not Raila or Ruto and not Michuki or vise versa? I don’t think so.

We need the truth NOW.

read more on the maize scandal

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I just read this interesting post by Ory on Kenyanpundit.com. According to the post, there seems to be evidence that people high up in ODM may be implicated in the maize scandal that has rocked the country, even as millions of Kenyans continue to live on wild fruits and dug up roots (are we in 200,000 BC????).

It makes you wonder whether we really need the coalition government. As things stand, it seems like these clowns running the country know that they can get away with everything because no one wants to break up the coalition government. Martha Karua (the Justice Minister) herself admitted that ODM and PNU politicians would rather remain in the coalition than seek a fresh mandate from wananchi. Raila and Kibaki should be bolder than they are being and face those stealing from Kenyans, be they big men or not. The two of them can garner enough support from their bases (I don’t mean just central and Nyanza but rather their supporters from across the country) to run the country without having to compromise on issues of corruption and incompetence. Kibaki can make a name for himself as the man who saved Kenya and put it on the right path. And Raila can earn some political capital that he will need for the 2012 election. I am not a die hard fan of either man, but I think right now they are Kenya’s best hope.

when will we have lasting political parties?

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True democracy is not just about holding elections every five years. It is also about having a constructive deliberative process. A process that focuses on issues. This is only possible with the creation of important institutions to mediate this process. In a true democracy, political parties are just as important as the legal provision for loyal opposition. Disorganized and unarticulated opposition is just as bad as, if not worse than, having a single party state. It breeds instability and degenerates into politics of contingency.

Sadly, Kenya’s democratic experiment is once again emerging as having failed. With the formation of PNU and ODM, I was hopeful that these two parties would consolidate and dig in their heels to become the peddlers of policies to the people. But sooner than later PNU started unravelling. Now we have ODM going throught the same trials. Members of parliament from the Rift Valley are threatening to quit the party – on what appears to be purely tribal grounds.

That Kenyan politicians are tribalistic is not a secret. It baffles me how nearly all MPs from a given area can always have the same positions on issues. Kenyan politics is such that just by knowing someone’s last name you can accurately predict their position on any political issue. This is total buffoonery. Absolute insanity. And at the very least extremely shameful.

I am disappointed in William Ruto. For a while I thought that he would be the man that detribalises the Rift Valley. While appreciating the concerns he may have over the implementation on the Waki report, he should not have come so publicly against it. He could have been more subtle and negotiated with the government – which he is a part of – from within.

Strictly speaking, I think the members of the Rift Valley have a point. The youth that were detailed for having engaged in violence were mere pawns of the political class. They should be freed. The people that should be in jail are the leaders who incited the youth. And Raila, Kibaki and Kalonzo should own up on their mess. Kibaki for not providind Kenyans with an open electoral process and Raila and Kalonzo for reacting to Kibaki’s mischief with mischief of their own.

the waki commission and the need for total truth

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I have previously stated my sympathies for William Ruto. But on this one I think the man from Eldoret North is going a bit too far. For a whole minister to go on record and rubbish the work of a highly respected commission is indeed deplorable. I hope that soon enough Ruto will realise that the more he continues to shout from the roof tops about the uselessness of the commission’s finding the more Kenyans will start pointing fingers at him.

It is true that the Rift Valley was the hotbed of the violence and that most of the perpetrators may have been Ruto’s adopted constituents. It is therefore expected that someone from the Rift Valley would come out and defend the perpetrators. But this is not how to go about it. The systemic problems that caused the flare up last January will not be solved by the commission’s prosecution of the perpetrators. I hope Kenyans realise that and that the commission appreciates this fact in its recommendations – I have downloaded a copy of the report but because of a term paper and other commitments haven’t been able to read through it (plus it’s like over 500 pages long!). In light of this fact, I don’t see why Ruto wants the truth to be swept under the carpet this early. He ought to let the truth come out and then we shall deal with the truth as responsible citizens who want a united future for Kenya.

If the people of Rift Valley and their leaders killed innocent Kenyans, Kenyans deserve to know. The victims need to know who these people are. From here we ought then to proceed to why these atrocities were committed and if we are true to ourselves we shall realise that the solution is not retribution but honest reconciliation. It is no secret that land was the issue in the Rift Valley. On this basis, some form of amnesty and redistribution of land can be worked out – but only after the truth has been put out there.

So Mr. Ruto should not be afraid, this only betrays his guilt – whether apparent or real. He should instead advocate for a responsible handling of the reconciliation process. This is his only realistic way of navigating through the tricky issue of the violence. If he however choses to confront the rest of the country by rubbishing the report, he will lose face and his own party might throw him under the bus. More importantly, Kenya may end up further divided with residents of the Rift Valley feeling alienated and marginalised. Nobody wants that. I hope this is clear to William Ruto.

may i politely disagree with Ruto

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So the other day William Ruto, a prominent national leader, proposed that parliament, instead of Omondi, Kamau and Muchama, should elect the president. His rationale was that the presidency has grown into a divisive rather than a unifying figure. That Kenyans have come to view competition for the post as a do or die, as was seen earlier this year when supporters of Kibaki and Raila killed, looted and maimed in the name of their respective candidates.

To some extent Ruto is right. The Kenyan presidency has been bastardized by the way the last elections were handled. It is because of the presidency that more than 1000 Kenyans died and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. The country is yet to fully recover from the polarizing effects of the events that followed Kivuitu’s sham of an election. So may be if we took away the winner-takes-all nature of the presidency we can reduce the risk of having another fiasco like we did in Decemeber of last year. Then we can have a very decentralized form of competition for constituency seats and then the party with the highest number of seats can form the next government. We shall in effect have a parliamentary system, with parliament having the power to recall an ill-performing president.

I have nothing against the above argument. I believe that the more checks we have the better. And we can kind of tweak Ruto’s suggestion a bit to have a Premier with executive powers elected by parliament and a president with ceremonial powers – either elected by the same parliament (but with a longer tenure) or by the people (again with a longer tenure than the Premier).

The only problem with this proposition is that I don’t think Kenya is ready for this yet. Our MPs are as corrupt as they are mindless and irresponsible. What stops them from being bribed to change governments every two days? Plus such strict parliamentary systems are highly unstable. Look at Israel and Italy for instance. They change governments every few months. This is the last thing we need in a highly tribalized young democracy like Kenya. We need stability in our politics and economic policies. Only a stable presidential system can provide this, for now. May be when we are more stable economically and have credible, stable and transparently run political parties we can flirt with the idea of having a parliamentary system.