Ruto and Raila already walking the bumpy road to 2027 contest

The road to 2027 is set to be rough and bumpy. William Ruto will travel with Raila Odinga on a common bike. Their eggs all in one basket, they should voyage most of the way in the guise of a coalition, “to save Kenya.” 

But do I run ahead of myself? Let me tell you a little story. In the novel titled Mine Boy, the iconic Peter Abrahams (1919–2017) tells the tale of the Custom and the City. It is a commonly told African narrative, with varying details. The thrust remains, however. The Custom and the City were always enemies. They could never agree on anything. Their wars made life difficult for everyone else.  

They screamed at each other noisily, each swearing to annihilate the other. They claimed to be the people’s leaders. They caused bloody fights. One day, however, they announced they were friends. “We have seen the folly of living like cats and dogs. From now, we will work together.” 

Nice people were happy. “The Custom and the City are now friends,” they said, “Our suffering has ended. They will make new laws. We will live and laugh together. It is not about the Custom and the City. It is about the people. We, the people. We the sheeple!”  

The next day, people worked in the fields. They sang songs, to praise the Custom and the City. They returned ready to eat and drink. But they were shocked. There was no food. There was no drink. Nor did they see the Custom. He was gone. Even the beautiful women were gone! But the City was there. Laughing at them. He chained them. The country became a slave camp. The slaves groaned under adversity. Yet, some said the chains were jewellery!  

Such is the tragedy of covenants that people hardly understand. And President Ruto and Raila have contracted such a cryptic covenant. TV footage shows nice people, over the top with joy, celebrating this cryptic pregnancy. Orwellian Sheeple bend backwards over, chanting, “Four legs good, two legs better!” Nobody recalls that the Custom and the City have been avowedly hostile to the thought that they could ever be in one bed. In gone days, Ruto described President Uhuru Kenyatta’s second term “a mongrel government.”

Mongrel promiscuity

Howsoever it is looked at, the congress between ODM and UDA has the look of a sinister giant mongrel. President Ruto sits at the mandible end of the beast. The creature has no definable DNA or character, except unrestrained mongrel promiscuity in the season of ovulation. These are the ambiguities that President Ruto, then Kenya’s DP, decried on camera. He wondered whether the Opposition was in Government, or the Government was in the Opposition.  

But President Ruto also told Kenyans something else, in his season of adversity under Uhuru’s season two. There were no more fools in Kenya. At page 647 of his autobiography, Flame of Freedom, Raila accuses President Moi of “using me to shore up his failing party,” after another cryptic pregnancy. He says, “Moi now had plans to dump me.”  

Kenyans know President Ruto is using Raila and ODM after the fashion decried in Flame of Freedom. Last June’s Gen-Z uprisings all but brought down the Ruto regime. Not one to miss an opportunity, Raila swung in swiftly, “to shore up Ruto’s failing party.” History shows that such moves are usually driven by selfish pursuit of power and glory. They are pulled when the ruling regime is at the nadir of its fortunes. It is weak and unpopular. The Custom comes to save the City.  Easy opportunities abound, to tap into bounty and influence. Raila, a native of the Lake Victoria fishing community, literally fishes in Ruto’s troubled waters. Together, they will use “the people” and “the national good” to feed self-fulfilling symbiosis. And, of course, there are nice people aplenty, to buy the narrative. 

In the essay “Nice people” the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) has said of such bootleggers, “ . . . if you attempt to persuade any nice person that a politician of his own party is an ordinary mortal, no better than the mass of mankind, he will indignantly repudiate the suggestion.” Orwell says, “Comrade Napoleon is always right.”  

Sheeple will bleat affirmations at funerals, and even in Church. Yet, do the days of broad-based conspiracies seem to be numbered? Kenyans outside predictable sheeple coordinates show clearly in social media that they want both Ruto and Raila far from power. The egg basket on the rugged road could be a good thing. 

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser.  www.barrackmuluka.co.ke