William Ruto’s slow motion fall and how he rose to claim the top seat
President Uhuru Kenyatta with Deputy President William Ruto at State House in Nairobi on March 13, 2019.
Before he was sidelined, William Ruto’s Harambee Annex building in Nairobi was supposed to be his seat of power. It was a stone’s throw away from the Office of the President — a walking distance from Harambee House, the main seat of power. At the entrance were hawk-eyed sentries and the neon sign was a constant reminder that this was the second most powerful address in Kenya. Silence and security were strictly observed.
During the night, the brightly coloured red and white signage shone as a constant reminder of the office of the Deputy President and the occupant. At first, the signage in the Office of the Deputy President appeared on both the ground floor and fifth floor. Then somebody, in 2014, renamed the building — previously housing the Office of Prime Minister Raila Odinga — Harambee Annex. In onomastics, names mean something — and in power-play they are not innocent.
The sidelining of Dr Ruto came in such slow motion that few people took notice — though during his first term as Deputy President, he enjoyed the protection of President Kenyatta, before he later joined the fray.
When President Kenyatta named his first Cabinet in 2013, he created for Dr Ruto an executive wing known as Executive Office of the Deputy President. It was a first. By then, both were bound by similar challenges — a charge of serious crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. They had promised to share power, once in office.
During the first term, Dr Ruto was arguably the second most powerful person in Kenya. His word was almost law. The camaraderie between him and President Kenyatta appeared natural and both displayed a brotherhood hitherto unseen in Kenyan politics. On the day they inaugurated the first Cabinet, both wore red ties, white shirts and no jackets. It was not a first though. First president Jomo Kenyatta and his vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, before they dramatically fell out, used to carry flywhisks and wear similar beaded beanies.
From the word go, Dr Ruto’s power seemed guaranteed. While power sharing occurs during a conflict — their version of it would turn problematic. It is now openly claimed that Ruto had demanded various top ministerial positions, and the right to pick several heads of parastatal, if he was to throw his weight behind Uhuru Kenyatta and for him to abandon his quest for the presidency. What is in the public domain — and Dr Ruto has acknowledged as much — is that there were negotiations brokered by Nairobi billionaire businessman Jimi Wanjigi. Dr Ruto publicly admitted that, indeed, Mr Wanjigi was the man who brought them together and made sure they stayed together in their quest for power. If they did not, Mr Wanjigi had warned them, they would go to The Hague minus the backing of the state.
Finally, Dr Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP), with support in the Rift Valley region, signed a coalition agreement with Mr Kenyatta’s The National Alliance (TNA) to form Jubilee Coalition, and the surprise amity brought together two antagonistic tribes — the Kikuyu and Kalenjin — in a new Jubilee Alliance. They were to run against the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) of Odinga, Moses Wetang’ula and Kalonzo Musyoka.
The Uhuruto victory surprised the international community since the two were already facing charges at the ICC. Again, the creation of the Executive Office of the Deputy President, contained in Executive Order Number 1 of 2013 that was published on April 13, 2013, some 10 days before President Kenyatta named his first four nominees to the Cabinet, was the first indicator that Kenya would have a powerful Executive Deputy President within the presidency in the name of Dr Ruto. It was an experiment, since previously, vice presidents were given specific ministerial portfolios. Whatever executive powers Dr Ruto had were never made public, though in the Constitution, his office is part of the three executive arms of the government – The President, the Deputy President and the Cabinet.
While all the Executive powers are given to the President — and the deputy only waits what is assigned to him — the framers of the 2010 Constitution only allowed the deputy president to chair the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) as the only duty specifically allocated to that office. Without any duties assigned to him, it appears that the Deputy President, perhaps, decided to finish his PhD thesis and carry out the scientific research that went with it. His critics have always wondered how he managed to finish his thesis while still working at the demanding high office.
Back to Harambee Annex, and with gazette notice 4961A in place, it was now clear that the powerful presidency not only included the Executive Office of the President, the Executive Office of the Deputy President but also two powerful ministries: Interior and Co-ordination of National Government and that of Devolution and Planning. A third element within the presidency was the Cabinet Affairs Office, a powerful Constitutional office created under the 2010 Constitution.
But it was the populating of the Executive Office with newcomers that seemed to suggest that the power rested with both Mr Kenyatta and Dr Ruto. In a surprise move that baffled political observers, President Kenyatta and Dr Ruto picked a former Utalii College general manager, Joseph ole Lenku, to head the powerful Interior docket while Ms Anne Waiguru, a former director of the Integrated Financial Management and Information System (Ifmis), was to head the powerful Ministry of Devolution and Planning. Both were greenhorns — and their dockets would put them in trouble as controversy and corruption would force them out.
While Mr Kenyatta had been a greenhorn too, he had taken Joseph Kinyua, his permanent secretary at the Treasury, with him and made him the Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service. Mr Kinyua had become a voice of reason in Kenyatta’s State House, perhaps the one person who does not raise his voice. The early departure of Francis Kimemia from the Cabinet Affairs office gave Mr Kinyua a chance to coordinate the docket, although in essence, he was not designated as Secretary to the Cabinet.
Soon, intelligence reports started filtering in about the activities at Harambee Annex. But by then, President Kenyatta was a fervent defender of Dr Ruto and anybody who bad-mouthed his deputy was swiftly sidelined, according to several sources. As scandals started to emerge within Jubilee projects, many, including Cabinet ministers, opted for silence rather than face the President’s ‘Vesuvius’ temper. From his backyard of Mt Kenya, most of the elected leaders kept away or joined hands with Dr Ruto who was also busy laying his networks within the region. As Ruto solidified his networks within Jubilee, he had no option but to support Kenyatta’s second term. A public promise by President Kenyatta that he would support Dr Ruto after 10 years had turned into a political debt.
Not wanting to antagonise his deputy ahead of his re-election for a final term, President Kenyatta and his handlers did not make a move against Dr Ruto, who had permanently shifted his operation base to his official mansion in Karen. It is now known that President Kenyatta, after he was re-elected, did not consult Dr Ruto and single-handedly made the appointments. He, however, retained a few key allies of Dr Ruto. Political pundits noted the shift – though Dr Ruto denied that there was a falling-out.
But 14 months after he was sworn in, and in a surprise move, President Kenyatta reorganised the government and appointed Dr Fred Matiang’i, the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Co-ordination of National Government, as the chairman of National Development Implementation and Communication Cabinet Committee. That meant that he would be chairing a meeting of all Cabinet secretaries and which would included the Attorney General Kihara Kariuki and the Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua. What that meant was that President Kenyatta had finally removed Dr Ruto from the heart of government operations and he would not even be able to launch government projects.
While Dr Ruto denied media reports that he had been side-lined, and claimed that Dr Matiang’i reports to the presidency “which I am part of”, it was not lost to observers that the confidence he had in the first term was slowly fading.
As power faded, Dr Ruto was only left with the glamour of office – the motorcade and some hubris. Free and loaded with money, Dr Ruto started plotting to succeed President Kenyatta and with the support of new allies in the Mt Kenya region, where he became a constant weekend feature. At one point, while testing his position within the government, Dr Ruto told a public rally — also attended by President Kenyatta — that he was the supervisor of government projects and was an emissary of the President. After that, President Kenyatta remarked that Dr Ruto’s frequent grassroots meetings were akin to “kutangatanga” (loitering) — which earned Dr Ruto’s campaign team the tag ‘tangatanga’.
While President Kenyatta had asked Dr Ruto to stop early political campaigns, the DP defied him and started attacking former Prime Minister Raila Odinga , who had entered into a truce with President Kenyatta in March 2018 after the 2017 General Election. While the truce gave President Kenyatta some peace to run the government, the ‘handshake’ would be the target of Dr Ruto who saw it, perhaps correctly, as part of the plot to get him out of power.
From then on, despite some public shows of comradeship, President Kenyatta and his deputy worked at cross-purposes. When President Kenyatta ordered a crackdown against corruption within ministries and parastatals, the deputy president would claim that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and the Kenya Revenue Authority were only targeting his supporters. The DP claimed that the war on corruption was political — and he launched a class war against “dynasties”. By wooing the poor, the jobless and the lumpen-proletariat, Dr Ruto’s campaign got a hook.
At the Karen residence, Dr Ruto found space, solace and peace. He would host delegations and manage his campaigns — now that he had been sidelined with no duties. Inside, he converted one of the halls into a church. For five years, he had all the time to rise and make lemonade out of lemons. Soon, he had fanatical following, the sterner stuff that politicos are made of. It was just a matter of time before the man from Sugoi sprung a surprise. And it came.
[email protected]. Twitter: @Johnkamau1
