Please beware, in brave new Kenya, irritating Prezzo Ruto is a crime

In a week dominated by major political events, with huge ramifications for the region and continent, I had no idea that Prezzo Bill Ruto had the time to retreat to a studio to turn his roadside declaration—about a massive road in North Eastern region—into an online musical sensation.

That was until Prezzo Ruto drew my attention to it, apparently because he was very upset that young Kenyans had appropriated his voice in such a cynical manner. His solemn speech, chanting the various locations that the road would course through had been turned into a syncopated rap.

“Ndio barabara itoke Mandera iende Rhamu, iende Gari, iende Elwak, iende Kobo, iende Kotulo, iende Tarbach, iende Wajir, iende Samatar (later Samatach), iende Modogashe, iende Isiolo, iende Nairobi…”

And I said to myself: how does he know so many backroads in the backwaters (more appropriately, deserts) of our land? What hurt Prezzo Ruto deeply, he revealed, was that his solemn promise had been turned into something like an online joke. “Many people,” he started, pursed his lips to resist the temptation to bite into them. “Think or assume it is a joke.”

I would have laughed at that— the idea of Prezzo Ruto taking himself too seriously, or expecting Kenyans to take him seriously—were it not for the thinning of his hair that shows he’s not taking too kindly this idea of Kenyans laughing him off at every turn.

In case you have forgotten, a msako followed in Isiolo after youths heckled him in a rally, in that very tour of the North, while his forays further up, in Addis Ababa, led to the arrest of Juja MP George Koimburi, whose name means the one who confesses.

Koimburi had let rip that he was privy to the billions burnt in presidential junkets to help Baba with African Union chairmanship campaigns. Both the youths of Isiolo and Koimburi ended up in court ended up in court, facing very grave charges that had nothing to do with laughing off Prezzo Ruto’s roadside declarations.

I suspect that with our pliant Parliament that stamps Bills like a franking machine, to use that analogue invention, it is possible that a Bill that criminalises irritating Prezzo Ruto went into effect without our notice.

“Let me tell you, good people, you know…” Prezzo Ruto left the sentence hanging, shrugged, before elaborating the progress reportedly made since he made his roadside declaration in the North. Seven contractors were on site, he revealed, and have commenced the task of building this Great North Road.

It appears some contractors were still on the way when Prezzo Ruto stopped counting because his Deputy, Kithure Kindiki, gave a different tally as 11 contractors, each assigned, he said, a stretch of “100 kilometres-plus.” That works to over 1,100 kilometres, some 350 kilometres longer than Prezzo had “commissioned.”

That’s nearly the distance from Nairobi to Nanyuki and back, which means this administration has elastic resources at its disposal. Or, it could be that those pronouncements are what the English folks call “a stretch of the imagination,” a term I would hesitate to use for the reasons outlined above.

In any case, Kindiki, the good professor of law, provided concrete, specific details: The road will be completed in under 2.5 years, so this is a milestone to look forward to in the run-up to the next General Elections—if Prezzo Ruto’s term is not extended as some chaps were plotting.

Strangely, the news of this massive road investment was received with eerie silence, not because the locals had no opinion of their own, but perhaps because they were cognisant of the risks of expressing themselves too truthfully. Or even worse, laugh them off.

Prezzo Ruto has been vindicated on one score. The youngsters ridiculing him and deflating his lofty promises, eroding his authority and power, must have acquired those skills in one of those “useless” arts classes that he hopes to erase from the face of our curricular. After all, only artists can speak truth to power, while seeming so deceptively powerless.