Who will tell the king that he is naked?

If I were President William Ruto, I would not worry too much about what Rigathi Gachagua says about me. I wouldn’t even worry too much about what Edwin Sifuna says, nor would I spend much time worrying about what Kalonzo Musyoka, Fred Matiang’i, and others tell me. I would worry about what the people around me say, those who sit closest to me, who laugh at my jokes, praise my wisdom, applaud my decisions and assure me that everything is going well.

Why, you may ask? The oldest danger of power is that those around a powerful person are filled with the spirit of lying. In fact, they perfect the art of telling a powerful man precisely what he wants to hear. Let me explain.

The powerful are not vulnerable merely because they have enemies. They are vulnerable because those around them are afraid to tell them the truth.

Over time, flattery becomes more profitable than honesty and silence becomes safer than courage. A leader may therefore find himself surrounded by people who appear to be loyal but who, in reality, are protecting their own positions by not exposing the leader to uncomfortable truths.

I have spent many years reading literature and it has given me many examples of this strange relationship between power and truth. Writers across centuries and cultures have been fascinated by kings, emperors and rulers who become prisoners of the people around them. But before turning to literature, let me begin with one of the books I enjoy reading most: the Bible.

The story of King Ahab in 2 Chronicles 18 is one of the earliest and most powerful illustrations of this danger. Ahab is preparing to go to war at Ramoth-gilead and consults his prophets. There are about four hundred of them, and they speak with remarkable unanimity. Their message is reassuring: the king should go to war because victory is assured. Then there is Micaiah, the inconvenient prophet who does not join the chorus. He tells Ahab what he does not want to hear.

Micaiah describes a vision in which a lying spirit enters the mouths of Ahab’s prophets and persuades the king to go into battle. And what happens to Micaiah? He is struck and imprisoned. The majority is comfortable, while the truth-teller pays the price. This story’s lesson is painfully modern. That is why African literature has repeatedly returned to this problem.

In Francis Imbuga’s Betrayal in the City, Boss, the ruler of Kafira, is surrounded by people whose fortunes depend on their proximity to power. Mulili is the quintessential sycophant. His loyalty is driven less by principle than by personal interest. He does not merely serve Boss; he helps construct the reality that Boss sees. His lies about Kabito contribute to Kabito’s death.

Yet Mulili eventually becomes part of the exposure of the very regime he has helped sustain. Imbuga’s title is deeply revealing. Betrayal in the City is not simply about enemies plotting against a government. Betrayal can take place within the inner circle of power. Sometimes the person who constantly says “Yes, Boss” can be more dangerous than the person who dares to say “No.”

Ngugi wa Thiong’o takes the same phenomenon to grotesque and comic extremes in Wizard of the Crow. The Ruler of Aburiria is surrounded by officials competing to demonstrate their usefulness and loyalty. The court becomes a theatre in which sycophancy is almost a professional skill. We laugh at the absurdity, but beneath the laughter lies a serious political insight: a ruler can become imprisoned by the very people who appear to serve him. The people around a leader become his eyes and ears. But what happens when the eyes have learnt to see only what the leader wants to see and the ears have learnt to hear only what he wants to hear? At that point, he receives a carefully manufactured version of reality.

Those around power understand the rituals of political survival. They know that saying the right thing matters more than saying the true thing. The problem, therefore, is not simply that dishonest individuals may surround a ruler. No.

An entire political culture can develop in an environment where honesty becomes dangerous and performance becomes a condition of survival. The African literary examples remind us that the old royal court has not disappeared. The courtiers are now the advisers, officials, strategists, party loyalists, friends or professionals. The vocabulary has changed, but the psychology remains the same.

William Shakespeare understood this psychology remarkably well. In King Lear, Lear punishes the daughter who will not flatter him. The irony is devastating. Lear wants truth, yet he creates a test that rewards falsehood. He wants love, yet he demands that love be demonstrated through extravagant praise. In trying to hear what he wants, he creates the conditions for his own deception.

In Macbeth, Shakespeare offers an even darker variation. Macbeth hears prophecies that appear to assure him of his security. But Macbeth is not merely deceived by others. He eagerly embraces interpretations that confirm what he already desires. This is perhaps the most uncomfortable lesson of all: sometimes people deceive leaders because they fear them, but sometimes leaders are deceived because they enjoy hearing what confirms their own convictions.

But the most spectacular is Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. It turns the same human weakness into comedy. Everybody can see that the Emperor is naked, but nobody wants to say so. The Emperor is not deceived by one clever liar alone. He is deceived because an entire society has decided that telling the truth is too risky. The lie survives because everyone participates in it. That is why the question facing any leader is not simply, “Who supports me?” It is also, “What truth about me are the people around me afraid to tell me?” A leader who never hears disagreement should be more worried than one who regularly encounters criticism.

Very many of us are Micaiahs, but we cannot always be heard. Micaiah remains an important figure not because he has the largest following, but because he refuses to confuse popularity with truth. Ahab did not lack information. What he lacked was a willingness to listen to information that threatened the version of reality he preferred. That is the great danger of power. It separates a leader from ordinary experience.

So, if I were President William Ruto, I would ask the people around me a difficult question: What truth are you afraid to tell me? A leader needs someone with enough courage to tell him when he is naked. That is my advice to President William Ruto. I do not want to be paid for it.

The people of the Republic of Kenya took me to school so that I could learn to think, question and dispense wisdom. I am simply paying back the debt.

Prof Egara Kabaji is a writer, educationist and researcher based at Masinde Muliro University. He is also the Vice President of the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) and the Chancellor of Mt Kigali University, Rwanda.