Why Ruto does not understand his first call is to Kenyans

Each member of the UN is expected to adhere to particular principles which include looking after, and protecting, the welfare of its citizens within and outside that country.

It arises from the reality that not all members practice the art of being ‘peace loving’, that frictions in certain countries translate to ‘un-peace’ that is trans-nationalised to other countries. Each country then has an obligation to ensure its citizens are free from harm. Failure to do that implies that the country does not know what its interests that need protecting and advancing are.

These include providing such basic needs as health and education services, safeguarding sovereignty and critical national assets, defending territory from all types of infiltration, ensuring its image and reputation is not tattered, and upholding its ideals and core values. While not all countries are able to protect all of those interests, the inability is vivid in states that behave as if they are client states of particular master states/forces and repeatedly find themselves as victims of ‘un-peace’ elsewhere. Kenya repeatedly gives the impression that it is a client state of some master states/forces outside the country.

Kenya has the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs as well as the Ministry of East African Affairs to worry about the fate of Kenyans.

Although there are instances when their performances have not been exemplary, it depends on which country is involved, on Kenya’s official interest in the specific outbreak of ‘un-peace’, or whether it even knows where Kenyans are or what they do when outside the country. Still, it is obliged to find out and do something. This obligation is glaring when prominent Kenyans are the victims of unpleasant policies in the country of ‘un-peace’. It happened several times within the East African Community, or Jumuiya, thereby calling into question Kenya’s effectiveness in protecting its interests.

Over time, the existing government tries to manage expectations by removing potential sources of trouble from foreign settings. In the 1950s during the Mau Mau War, the colonial government worked hard to contain the potential spread of the Mau Mau spirit by deporting Kenyan ‘natives’ in Uganda, Tanganyika, possibly from Northern Rhodesia, and even the United States of America.

An MOU between Britain and the US that the Mau Mau War would not be discussed at the UN showed the extent of fear that the Mau Mau spirit generated. In post-colonial times, Kenyans experienced trouble from their neighbours. In 1969, after Apollo Milton Obote proclaimed his socialistic Common Man’s Charter, a variation of Julius Nyerere’s 1967 Arusha Declaration, Obote kicked Kenyans out of Uganda because they were ‘capitalistic’. Nyerere closed the Kenya–Tanzania border in the 1970s to safeguard his Ujamaa socio-economic experiment from Kenya’s possible capitalistic contamination. Eventually the EAC collapsed in 1977 mainly because the members did not trust each other, did not believe in the same community objectives, and even let personal dislikes interfere with EAC decision-making.

Envy and respect probably explain the ‘fear’, admiration and suspicion that others have of the ability of Kenyans to dominate. It explains the failure of the ‘Closer Union’ idea in the 1920s, the breakup of the East African Common Services in the 1960s, the collapse of the EAC in 1977, and even the perception of regular regional hostility towards Kenyans. Outside the EAC, despite its capitalistic stance and friendship with Israel and the Conceptual West, Kenya became a refuge for neighbours in trouble and a champion of what one-time Foreign Minister Munyua Waiyaki termed ‘dynamic compromise’ in stalemated OAU conferences.

The doctrine of ‘dynamic compromise’ ensured Kenya was acceptable in mediating conflicting factions in the continent. Since other states appeared to stagnate in ‘socialistic’ or Marxist trial balloons, Kenya forged ahead and became both the envy of the neighbourhood as well as a place of respect where things get done. It became the place to go to for various factions to have freedom to strategise on developments in their countries; freedoms they did not have in their homes.

When Kenya developed inability to provide the basics for its overtaxed people, while a favoured few people swam in pretentious and imported ‘aristocratic’ luxuries, it damaged and lost its ability to continue promoting continental ‘dynamic compromise’. As a result, some of its citizens fell into the trap of finding dubious ‘jobs’, at times with government encouragement, in what were versions of master states/forces; they embarrassed Kenya.

When it emerged that Kenyan soldiers had enlisted in such master states at war as the US and Russia, questions arose as to how that had happened. The capture of Kenyan soldiers fighting for Russia in Russia’s war in Ukraine as POWs attracted unattractive questions. To his credit, President William Ruto tried to reach out to his friendly Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss the release of the captured Kenyans. The outcome of the discussion is yet to be known. Then there are challenges of Kenyans working and being mistreated as domestics which Kenyan authorities appear to be helpless or act as if they are beholden to the master state/force.

The appearance of national helplessness loomed large in the recent past with information that Kenya was probably surrendering critical national assets to master states/forces. Part of the 2024 Gen Z uprising was that government officials virtually admitted surrendering sovereignty to the unelected World Bank and the IMF and other foreign forces to run the affairs of state.

Apart from taxes, there was the ‘surrender’ of the airport and energy infrastructure to Adani-related setups. This tended to link Kenya to the civil war in Sudan mainly as a conduit for RSF weapons supply and reported export of Sudanese gold.

The impression created, therefore, was that Kenyans are alone at the mercy of external forces and should not expect much from their government.

Recent events in Eastern Africa give the impression of abandonment, especially with the rise of dissonance involving two emerging groups: between those in power and those denied rights. This dissonance tended to unite the rulers or the political classes in every country against their governed. They appeared united in ignoring the cries of the people.

William Ruto in Kenya, Samia Suluhu in Tanzania and Yoweri Museveni in Uganda were in a governing league of their own to support each other against domestic political challenges. On the other side, the ruled appeared to unite against their collective ‘oppressors’ and to stand in solidarity with the human symbols of oppression in specific countries. When that happened, governments appeared not to be interested in protecting their people.

This reality in East Africa, of the clash between the rulers and the ruled, played itself out in the open within the year 2025. When, in the build-up to its October elections, Tanzania locked up Chadema leader Tundu Lissu and charged him with treason, Lissu sympathisers from Kenya and Uganda went to Dar es Salaam to observe the treason trial. These included Kenya’s former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga and former Justice Minister Martha Karua and, despite their credentials, they received rough treatment, were denied entry and were accused of exporting Kenya’s bad manners to Tanzania.

What was interesting was the reaction from Kenyan officialdom and power wielders who implied agreement with Tanzania’s handling of Kenyans. National policy maker Oscar Sudi commended President Samia for fixing the Kenyans, asserting that if it was Samia, were he her, “I would have disciplined those Kenyan activists for two days, two strokes each day.”

Nelson Koech, chairman of the National Assembly Security and Foreign Relations Committee, said Tanzania had the right to deny entry, and advised Karua to focus on Kenyan affairs. Then there was Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, in charge of foreign affairs, arguing like Sudi, and claimed that “the level of etiquette or lack thereof and insults we see in Kenya … sometimes go too far.” Thus the impression from Kenya’s power wielders was that Tanzania and Uganda were free to ‘discipline’ Kenyan activists; on the unofficial behalf of Kenyan authorities.

The election in Tanzania was bungled beyond repair. Suluhu, competing against herself and shutting down the internet, blamed Kenya for the demonstrations that arose. The police killed many people including a Kenyan school teacher in Dar es Salaam, and generally targeted Kenyans for special harassment and closure of businesses.

Instead, Kenya sent Deputy President Kithure Kindiki to deliver Kenya’s ‘congratulations’. While the AU retracted its ‘congratulations’, Kenya remained loudly silent. It appeared to be in a fix.