President William Ruto when he paid a courtesy call to former President Uhuru Kenyatta in Gatundu on December 9, 2024.
Even after President William Ruto met his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta at Ichaweri village in December last year, what was anticipated to be a handshake between them now appears to have died on arrival.
The meeting came as a surprise to many political pundits who had not foreseen the possibility of Mr Kenyatta, who had openly campaigned against a Ruto presidency, throwing his lot with his successor.
On face value, President Ruto and Mr Kenyatta reuniting to fight from the same terraces looked harder than a camel getting through the eye of a needle owing to their bitter fallout in the run-up to the 2022 presidential election.
The two had a sustained political animosity for close to three years before the December 9, 2024 surprise meeting.
The perceived truce was seen as a major win for President Ruto, who was smarting from the June 2024 nationwide youth-led protests that shook his nascent Kenya Kwanza administration and forced him to dissolve his Cabinet and reject the controversial Finance Bill, 2024.
President William Ruto pays a courtesy call to former President Uhuru Kenyatta at his Gatundu home on December 9, 2024.
The President’s men even revealed without offering proof that they had taken goats in a lorry to Ichaweri to pacify the political conflict that had played out in the past seven years.
Barely days after the meeting, the President appointed Mr Mutahi Kagwe as Agriculture CS, William Kabogo as Information Technology CS and Mr Lee Kinyanjui to the Trade and Investment docket.
The appointments gave credence to the Uhuru-Ruto second coming together after the 2013 union that propelled them to State House.
Jubilee Secretary-General Jeremiah Kioni, however, denied any political union between the two politicians.
“Those appointed are not Mr Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party members and were not endorsed by my boss. They took up the positions in their personal capacities. If the appointments had the blessings of my boss, I, too, would have been appointed CS,” said Mr Kioni.
Mr Kenyatta in January 2025 also came out as rubbing salt into the raw wound of President Ruto when he supported the youth in their demand for accountability by those in power while urging the government to listen to their grievances.
While addressing mourners at the burial of his cousin Kibathi Muigai, Mr Kenyatta urged the youth not to yield to “fear-mongers”.
“This country has a problem of fear peddlers, who do not understand power is transient. The problem with some is peddling fear ... do not buy it. Nothing lasts forever. Gen Z are the story of the future...Everything is worth a fight. Don’t just stay there to later complain when you achieve nothing,” he said.
Mr Kenyatta’s shocker came at a time when the Gen Z were, and still are, fighting for cessation of abductions, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances perceived to be perpetrated by government agents.
It came at a time when the Gen Z had launched a pandemic of daring online graphics that depicted some leaders in coffins.
Mr Kenyatta said “cowards have no space in liberations”.
“With Mr Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party endorsing former Interior CS Fred Matiang'i for the presidency in 2027, and other loyalists hobnobbing with Mr Gachagua for the anti-Ruto alliance ahead of 2027, the handshake that had been hyped by State House has continued to look like a political fool’s day prank,” says former Mt Kenya MCAs caucus chairman Charles Mwangi.
Then just this past weekend in Meru County, Mr Kenyatta supported both the people and the church in pushing for people-centric governance.
“The church must remain the conscience of the nation in ensuring that leaders remain on the right track. Leaders must be prayed for so that they can remain true to the needs of the people and act on their cries of hardship,” Mr Kenyatta said.
This comes at a time when the people are perceived to have grave issues with the Ruto administration, ranging from over taxation, problematic health insurance and university education funding models, abductions, dictatorship and a culture of entrenched lies.
The government is also in trouble with the church which is widely opposed to unkept promises, early campaigns, tokenism, opulence and insensitivity.
“If I were given a choice to live or die if I answered correctly the question as to whether Mr Kenyatta has a handshake with President Ruto, I would without hesitation answer that there is nothing like that,” says Mr Muriithi Kang'ara, the Kirinyaga County Jubilee Party chairman.
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