Deputy President Kithure Kindiki (left) former DP Rigathi Gachagua and President William Ruto.
A video clip doing the rounds shows President William Ruto heaping rather dubious plaudits on the Meru people. He praises them for their loyalty, illustrating it with a tale of how if you asked a Meru friend to chop off the head of somebody who had annoyed you, he would without question take a panga and perform the dastardly deed. It was only after the act that he would come back to ask what sin the fellow had committed.
It is an old video dating back to the 2018 Madaraka Day celebrations marked in Meru town, when Dr Ruto was then deputy to President Uhuru Kenyatta. He had obviously spoken in jest, with little thought to the impact of regurgitating offensive stereotypes. Other than embarrassed chuckles in the crowd at Kinoru stadium, that was the end of the matter.
But the Internet never forgets.
Last week, that video was revived with vengeance on social media as Prof Kithure Kindiki was sworn in as Deputy President to succeed the impeached Rigathi Gachagua. The relevance of the clip was in the new DP hailing from the wider Meru community, even if out of the Tharaka sub-group.
False evidence
Questions were asked afresh if Prof Kindiki, especially from his docket as Cabinet secretary for Interior, had unquestionably accepted an assignment to chop off the head of a besieged DP. The patently false evidence used as grounds for impeachment and clear misuse of State security organs to accomplish the mission spoke volumes.
Anyway, all that might be water under the bridge now unless Mr Gachagua makes headway in his continuing legal fights.
The more pertinent issues now lie around the palpable anger in much of the expansive Mt Kenya region despite the fact that the DP was replaced by another of their own.
We can be sure that Mr Gachagua will do everything he can to exploit the sense of betrayal within the populous voting bloc.
However, serious questions must be asked: Will the ousted DP will be fighting for the community, or fighting for himself?
The people of the mountain occupy a central place in Kenyan politics. In 60 years of independence, they have reigned in three out of five presidencies, the other two occupied by Dr Ruto’s northern Rift Valley group.
And when not president, it has almost been a given that Mt Kenya will present the deputy, using that position to gun for the top slot in due course.
Must the leadership of Kenya always be a K-K (Kikuyu-Kalenjin) baton exchange?
State House domination
When President Uhuru Kenyatta, in his second and final term ditched his DP Ruto to campaign for veteran opposition chief Raila Odinga, part of the stated goal was to break that entrenched State House domination by two ethnic formations.
President Ruto has happily inherited many of the bad habits of the regime he served as DP for 10 years. One good thing he can borrow is the resolve to build a succession plan that reflects the face of Kenya.
Mr Gachagua, in turn, can drive his future political endeavours on the principle that nowhere is it written that power must return to Mt Kenya.
By their sheer numbers, industry, entrepreneurial spirit and cosmopolitan mien that has footprints all over Kenya, the people of the mountain will always be sought after as kingmakers. They don’t have to sit in State House to thrive, but should just ask to be left alone to go about their business without undue hindrance.
*****
Americans today troop to polling stations to either elect their 47th president, or re-elect the 45th. It is even at this late stage a race too close to call between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Whatever the outcome, one of the closest polls in history will leave a deeply fractured nation.
Many of us might be horrified that Mr Trump actually has a more than even chance of making a comeback after sitting out one term, but then we never even imagined such a divisive and utterly flawed character winning in 2016.
Oldest democracies
The US boasts one of the oldest democracies in the world, but democracy cannot be perfect when crooks, fraudsters and charlatans can actually win the popular vote.
We have learnt that American democracy is no better than ours, and her voters no wiser either. May Ms Harris win and help restore faith in common sense, but even then we must live with the fact that nearly half of all Americans identify with an extremism that not too long ago was preserve of a tiny lunatic fringe.
[email protected]; @MachariaGaitho
