Why William Ruto's influence is getting eroded

Power comes in many guises, is hard to gain, and easy to lose. It has three foundations; possession of requisite knowledge and competence, ability to retain the trust/confidence and obedience of the ruled, and the use of common sense in balancing the other two. To have those foundations, rulers often appeal to the divine to legitimise their rule and as long as the ruled accept the divine connection, the rulers are safe.

To justify his being king, for instance, David had Hebrew oral traditions put into writing in ways that made past divine actions preparations for David to be king. The challenge to rulers is to retain legitimacy lest, as Confucius warned roughly 2600 years ago, they lose public trust and face rebellion.

Knowledge outdoes empires and brute force which rulers like. Alexander the Macedonian stressed this point but he wanted to control, and deny knowledge to the ruled. Many rulers behave like Alexander in trying to deny knowledge and some even go to the extent of destroying an educational system that enlightens the ruled. North Africa’s Ibn Khaldun, lamenting the decline of the Islamic Umma, noted the process of losing empires as being loss of collective sense of responsibility, replaced by increased incompetence and corruption.

They ignore Nicollo Machiavelli’s warning to the ‘Prince’ to balance fear with respect, the lion and the fox, and never to confuse the two. The wise ones behave like Mwai Kibaki in decreeing ‘Watoto Wasome’ as a way of protecting society from destruction.

Those trying to limit access to education because they hold office ignore the fact that power is transient. They enjoy what GG Kariuki termed Illusion of Power which he had while serving as Jomo Kenyatta’s and Mbiu Koinange’s errand boy and as minister. Errand boys exercise some power and at times act as what Bob Haldeman termed as every president’s ‘son of a bitch’. With Haldeman serving as Richard Nixon’s son of a bitch, Nixon ended up losing power in part because his ‘sons of bitches’ went haywire in Watergate and were caught breaking into offices. He lost the trust of the people and the country. Many are those holding power who lost it and tragically appear to be oblivious of that reality.

Benjamin Netanyahu

The loss of power can be to countries, institutions, and individuals. Often, individuals are the reason that countries and institutions lose power especially when they ignore the basics of power and influence. The United States and the United Nations are seemingly not as influential as they used to be. Neither is Israel in part because Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed reluctant Euro-countries into recognising Palestine.

In Kenya, William Ruto started well only to so squander public trust in three years that he sounds desperate trying to justify his problems in steering the ship of state. He has stabilised the currency and has pleased extra-continental powers. He has hosted such Euro-royalties as England’s King Charles III and his venture into Haiti has gone remarkably well.

He, however, appears to have lost sovereignty to foreign forces that advise him on what to do in Kenya, some of it not pleasing to Kenyans. As he imagines himself to be equal to China’s Xi Jinping, his supposed collaborator in changing the world, the waves of domestic unhappiness due to collapsing institutions makes him desperate. His errand boys and girls are not helping him.

There are times when people in high offices, deluding themselves into believing that they are omnipotent, behave as if they are omniscient, and lose common sense. Biblically, Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and successor, ignored good advice. The kingdom of Israel split and put the Israelites under continuous subordination symbolised by the Babylonian captivity; they were rescued by Cyrus the Persian.

Ruto disappointingly displays similar traits, claims he is brighter than everyone else, and is blind to the erosion of his influence and power over Kenyans.