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Mr President; who exactly are you angry at?

William Ruto

President William Ruto addresses wananchi in Kagumo town, Kirinyaga, during a development tour of the county.

Photo credit: Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • The calls for your resignation are cries of a country that can no longer afford the pains of your regime.
  • The protests of June 25 and July 7 weren’t just a demonstration—they were a rebellion against tyranny.

Picture this: You are jobless, and the year is 2022. You apply for a job. Since your application has to go through the approval of 15 million people, you put together a convincing plan on how you will do the job and deliver the desired results.

You take a considerable amount of time to point out the failures of your predecessors. You then insist on your path, not just so you can fix the things they did wrong, but also so you make things even better. 

You are contesting against a generational fraudster, and therefore you win and get the job, albeit by a thin margin.

Eventually, the time to fulfil your promise comes. Instead of doing what you promised, you start lying. You do this so much that your employers make a spectacle of your inability to tell the truth.

Then you ask for a higher budget but your employers insist that the organization cannot afford it. Sadly though, you have the entire budget approval committee in your pocket. 

Soon after, your employers begin to get agitated. They try using all established means within the system to get you to change and do things the right way.

However, you dismiss it all. Your employers, their families, and their friends finally discover that your plan is to do a hostile takeover of their business. 

When they demand that you should leave on account or your inability to tell the truth and deliver results, you suddenly get interested in the specific clause in the policy that talks about a protracted process to get you out. And now, suddenly, you are the victim.

If I missed anything, I’m happy to add. Now, Mr President, at whom, exactly, is your anger directed? That is the question.

Calls for your resignation

Mr President, you are not a victim. You are not a misunderstood leader who got caught up with the wrong crowd. You are not a well-intentioned reformer who somehow lost his way in the bureaucracy. 

This government, its failures and approval ratings are all a reflection of you.

From the moment you took office, you have shown the country exactly who you are: a man who campaigned on promises of uplifting the life of the hustler while all the time planning to entrench the same corrupt, elitist system you claimed to despise. And this time around, sadly, you are in the club.

The calls for your resignation aren’t a request for you to do better either. They are cries of a country that can no longer afford the pains of your regime.

Your presidency has mastered the art of deception. You sold Kenyans a dream in 2022—affordable healthcare, jobs for the youth, an end to dynastic politics, a stop to extra judicial killings, not using security forces to score political goals…the list is endless. Yet, three years later, the reality is the direct opposite of what Kenyans expected from you. 

Today, things are worse than they were when you took over. The situation was already before you assumed office following last General Election.

To outdo Uhuru’s presidency at incompetence requires daily investment in failure. The crisis over the high cost of living isn’t an accident; it is a direct result of your policies, deliberately designed to squeeze the life out of every Kenyan.

Then there’s violence. The protests of June 25 and July 7 weren’t just a demonstration—they were a rebellion against tyranny. Kenyans took to the streets, not because they are politically motivated, as you claim, but because they are fed up with a regime that lies, steals, and kills in its desperate attempt to cling to power. 

The death toll from those protests, 31 from July alone, are a stain on your a reputation that was already bad. Your order for the police to shoot looters in the legs wasn’t just reckless—it was a chilling endorsement of state-sponsored brutality, at a time when the nation is calling for sober leadership. Yet, you stand before the nation and ask why people were never this angry at your predecessors.

Buying off the opposition

Mr President, you are not a clueless victim overwhelmed by a lack of clarity on the manifestation of these consequences; you are a calculating politician who rose to power when Mwai Kibaki’s investment in education and tech had finally matured. This is the generation that has come to collect returns on Mzee Kibaki’s investment. And a government you’ve been part of for three years has stolen that future. The worst of our country’s governance, finally, unironically has to contend with the best of her generations.

And it is not even just a generational call. Most Kenyans—young, old, urban, rural—have made it clear: they don’t want reforms from you because you have proven your inability to deliver that. They just want you out and gone. The impeachment calls, aren’t about giving you a chance to improve. They are about holding you accountable for a presidency that has become a national disgrace.

Your attempts to cling to power are making things worse—state security, propaganda, buying off the opposition, holding parliament and the judiciary hostage—to manage your besieged presidency. The budget approval process, marred by coercion and corruption, is a case study in this regime’s contempt for democracy. Parliament is now a personal fiefdom, with MPs acting as puppets while Kenyans suffer.

Kenyans are not asking for dialogue anymore. They are not interested in promises of “listening” or “engaging.” They have heard it all before, and they know it is just another lie. Today’s youth has taken up the mantle of the Saba Saba uprising, demanding, not just change, but justice. They’re not alone—mothers, fathers, workers, and grandparents, are standing with them on this, united in their resolve to rid Kenya of this toxic leadership. 

The protests are not going away, Mr President, but you are, if the reactions and actions of Kenyans over the past one year are anything to go by. If anything, the protests are growing louder, fiercer, and more determined with every shot fired at the people with every life lost.

You deserve every bit of the backlash you are facing. You have earned the distrust, the anger, the calls for your ouster. This is not about your predecessors or “sponsored anarchy.” It’s about a president who lied his way into power, betrayed the people who believed in him, and has now resorted to violence to silence dissenting voices.

So, Mr President, this is not about being misunderstood. This is not about a small group of people orchestrating your downfall. This is the voice of a people, whose backs, you and your regime, have pushed against a wall. You may have two more years to try and rescue whatever is left of your legacy. However, beyond that, Kenyans are preparing for a future that, thankfully, does not include you.