The heavy clouds of expectation had been hanging for days like a gathering storm. Then it was all tumult and noise.
The tempest broke out on a quiet Monday evening. It crashed in a roar and leapt through Kenya’s airwaves like the clap of thunder.
The announcement — on August 15, 2022, that Dr William Samoei Ruto had been elected the fifth president of Kenya — sounded like the echo of the rolling peals of thunder reverberating through the hills.
The tremor spread far and wide. And there were casualties — shocked to a stupor — with that faraway look of the defeated.
Dr Ruto’s journey from Kamagut to President-elect is like a captivating novel with a thrilling and thickening plot that has swings, twists, turns and reversal of fortunes.
One of the things that makes Dr Ruto’s life exciting is its romantic variety of circumstances. This multi-coloured life started when he was born as a son of a peasant on December 21, 1966, in Kamagut Village, Uasin Gishu County.
The New York Times journalist Abdi Latif Dahir summed his early life well in a sentence: “He raised sheep and cows, hunted rabbits with friends and attended school barefoot”.
His Kamagut days were probably simpler and carefree, and the future held no terrors; before his life was thrown into the limelight with its attendant responsibilities and stress.
His supporters would like to imagine these early days are akin to those of another great man of another age who publicly embraced God — the biblical King David who came from a humble background of a shepherd and rose to the throne.
The theologian Alexander Maclaren writes of David’s early days and simple thoughts: “Such were the thoughts and hopes of the lad who kept his father's sheep at Bethlehem.
One happy thought fills the spirit; one simple emotion thrills the chords of his harp. No doubts, griefs, or remorse throw their shadows upon him.
For David, the peace and serenity of the early days ended when as Maclaren writes, “A breach in all the tranquil habits of this modest life was made by Samuel's great errand... The minute account of the successive rejections of his brothers… the pause of idle waiting till the messenger goes and returns, heighten the expectation with which we look for his appearance.
And then what a sweet young face is lovingly painted for us... So he stood before the old prophet, and with swelling heart and reverent awe received the holy chrism (anointing)… Whether the secret of his high destiny was imparted to him then or left to be disclosed in future years, is not told… whether with the full understanding of what was before him or not, he must have been conscious of a call that would carry him far away from the pastures and olive yards of the little hamlet and of a new Spirit stirring in him from that day forward”.
Likewise, for the boy from Kamagut, we don’t know when but at some point, in the journey of life — from his days walking barefoot to primary school, then to Wareng Secondary School before transferring to Kapsabet Boys High School and later at the University of Nairobi — somewhere in between, his spirit must have stirred him to politics.
Whether he was conscious of the danger ahead, we may never know but his young eyes seem to have looked audaciously into the uncertain future.
He then became a Member of Parliament, a Cabinet minister in various dockets and then deputy president.
Then the plot thickens. It was as deputy president that he launched an energetic campaign for the presidency with sunny confidence and stubborn relentlessness.
Dr Ruto is known for personal daring, decisiveness and revered political strategy.
He blazed out like a flame with lightning-like precision, focus and hard work — capturing the public imagination early and stirring the masses to ecstasy.
There is a twist in the plot because, within this period, he fell out with his boss, President Uhuru Kenyatta , and led an insurgent campaign like an outsider.
Like David, Dr Ruto had to face his Goliath when he looked terribly outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and outgunned.
He ran against the powers that be and the “system” like David did — dashing towards Goliath with youthful enthusiasm, courage, and faith.
