William Ruto Has Failed Kenyans Like Me

Time​ Magazine

3 days ago

On a humid July afternoon, I found myself at a stall in Brixton Market in South London buying a Kenyan flag bracelet. The lanky man selling the country bracelets asked me if I was replacing mine. I told him I had never owned one. He stopped flicking through the bracelets and paused, his hand mid-air holding a string of beads in red, green, white and black—the colors of the Kenyan flag.
'Why?' he asked.
'I have a complicated relationship with my country.' I replied. 'The politics, the politicians.'
He concurred. 'Bro, I'm Nigerian so I know exactly what you mean.' We laughed about it some more, this shared misery of ours, the state of our countries. I tapped five pounds for the bracelet, wore it around my wrist, and left. This was me finally displaying my Kenyanness, this was me saying, 'My country is not perfect but it is mine.'
I sat on the tube from Brixton, scrolled through my Twitter feed, and watched photos and videos of young Kenyans covered in tear-gas smoke and the water cannon spray.
On June 8, Albert Ojwang, a 31-year old teacher and anti-corruption blogger, was killed in police custody after being arrested for allegedly insulting a senior police officer on social media. His death in Nairobi sparked a series of protests by young Kenyans against police brutality and lack of government accountability.
The young protesters were again met with the brute force of the Kenyan police. I shuddered at a video of hawker Boniface Kariuki being shot in the head. I saw images of young people lying dead on the road, their blood spilling and meshing with the tarmac. Mothers crying out loud for their children, and fathers hugging their children close to their chests. In three weeks of protests, 38 people were killed and 29 others injured.
I couldn't help but ask myself how did we get here? How did we allow ourselves to sink to this point? That, of course, is the easier question to answer with our own choices in the elections. How do we get away from this becomes a much harder one to deal with.
This is the tug-of-war relationship I've had with this place I call home.
A personal history of post-colonial violence
The first time I encountered police brutality in the hands of the Kenyan police, I was four years old. It was Saba Saba day, July 7, 1997. On my way home from nursery school I was caught up in the nationwide protests against the government of Daniel arap Moi, the dictator who ruled Kenya between 1978 and 2002 animated by calls for a transition from a one-party state to a multiparty democracy. I choked up on teargas as I ran home, my great-grandmother waiting for me at the door. My memory of that day shaped my relationship with the Kenyan state and its violent machinery.
Years later, I would learn that a 17-year-old boy was murdered by the police in those protests. Often, I wonder if his ghost looks at the other young people who have been murdered at the hands of the state: Samantha Pendo, a six month old, killed in a police operation in an opposition stronghold after protests against irregularities in a 2017 election; Rex Masai, the first person to be killed in the 2024 crackdown on peaceful protests against government plans to increase taxes on bread, sanitary pads, diapers, vegetable oil and fuel; two brothers, Benson Njiru Ndwiga, a 22-year old law student, and Emmanuel Mutura Ndwiga, an 19-year-old engineering student, were murdered by policemen enforcing a Covid-19 lockdown.
And many more who have lost their lives to the ruthlessness of the Kenyan police.
The difficult business of democracy
In 1992, a year before I was born, a group called YK '92 was launched into the Kenyan political scene to sabotage the general elections and ensure that Moi's iron grip on power continued. The group used intimidation, coercion, corruption, and violence. In collaboration with the dictatorship, they printed so much money it created an inflation crisis. One of the key players in this instrument of the dictatorship was a protégé of Moi: a young William Samoei Ruto, who rose through the ranks and eventually was elected the president of Kenya in 2022.
I became aware of Ruto and the space he occupied in the Kenyan political ecosystem as a teenager during the fiercely contested general elections in Kenya in 2007. The incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was being challenged by Raila Odinga, who had aligned with him in 2002 to get Moi out of power. Odinga was expected to win but the elections were marred by irregularities. President Kibaki was declared the winner for the second term. Odinga and his party disputed the results and widespread violence followed. In the end, they agreed to a power sharing deal brokered by Kofi Annan.
Eventually, Ruto would be among those charged at the International Criminal Court for the post-election violence in which aproximately 1,200 people died and half a million people were displaced. Accusations against Ruto ranged from murder, transporting violent groups from one area to another to kill people, to giving instructions to goons to kill people and destroy property that belonged to the other ethnic groups in the Rift Valley.
Every election cycle since has been accompanied by some degree of state violence. And again and again, Ruto has been part of the governments inflicting the violence.
From the disappearance of ICC witnesses to political assassinations with bodies being fished out of River Yala in western Kenya, Ruto has somehow managed to find himself in the middle of it all. And yet, despite all this, Ruto continued to climb the political ranks to the presidency.
The false promise of William Ruto
Ruto narrowly won the 2022 national elections despite strong opposition from Uhuru Kenyatta, the president he deputised as Vice-President since 2013. Though many remained wary of the numerous charges of corruption and violence against him over the years, Ruto ran under the 'Hustler' banner and made great promises of reducing the costs of food and fertilizer, supporting small businesses, and bringing economic growth and prosperity to Kenya. None of these promises have been kept.
Instead, since 2022, we have witnessed a government of wastage, looting, and wanton corruption. Kenyans are worse off than before, with many blaming Ruto for his failure to improve the economic conditions, his decisions to increase taxes, and his ostentatious display of wealth from fancy watches to Louboutin shoes. Ruto also plans to build a new church at his official presidential residence in Nairobi at a cost of $9.3 million—a decision that has angered many Kenyans.
By the summer of 2024, the Gen Z Kenyans were fed up with the increasingly bleak economic conditions, the skyrocketing unemployment rates, and what they saw as the blatant looting of state resources as the political class and their children flaunted their ill-gotten wealth on social media. To pay back loans from the International Monetary Fund, Ruto introduced a finance bill in June 2024 to impose new taxes, which would increase the cost of bread, telephone and internet data, cars, money transfers, ride-hailing and food-delivery services, among other things.
Young Kenyans believed the IMF loans had done little for the country and been siphoned off to service the lavish lifestyles of the ruling class. The rumble of discontent grew into the rapturous clap of thunder. Online, we congregated around the hashtags #RutoMustGo and #RejectFinanceBill2024. With one voice, the people were saying 'Enough!' Young Kenyans took to the streets; Ruto's police opened fire and killed close to 100 people. We huddled together and mourned our lost ones.
Relentless police brutality
Ruto pledged that there would be reform, that things would change but he continued to use the police to silence dissent: kidnappings and murders of government critics became a regular occurrence. The violence was meant to spread fear but it only created solidarity amongst these young people. After the custodial murder of the blogger, Albert Ojwang, they found a renewed voice by coming together.
Ruto remains adamant the protests are planned to sabotage him and his presidency. His government has intensified its crackdown on dissent, arresting activists and charging protesters with anti-terror laws, seemingly an attempt to ensure there is little to no opposition to his abuse of powers. With Ruto still in control, there is little hope of reform and accountability.
Each time I take a look at the Kenyan bracelet on my wrist, I am confronted with the possibility that Kenya might never be the same again after Ruto's presidency. I am scared of how deep the rot has gone, and the amount of work it will take subsequent governments to uproot it all. All systems may be too corrupted and we might need a full reset. And yet, as hopeless as this all sounds, I cannot afford to despair. Kenya has been here before—with the Moi presidency—and we managed to pull ourselves out of the quagmire and wipe everything clean and start again.
So, we continue to push against the fear. We carry ourselves with the dignity of the warriors we've always been. We resist—even in the smallest of ways.
When the brutal dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi ended in 2002, Kenyans sang of his riddance. One day Ruto will go too, and we will, with a resounding voice, sing of a hopeful future without him.
'Yote Yawezekana, Bila Ruto.'
Anything is possible, without Ruto.