By David Ogega- Kenya Diaspora Movement
Less than two months to Kenya’s general elections scheduled for August 9, 2022, all indications are this cycle will be a turning point for Kenya’s political future. Whereas every election is unique and historical, none more so than this cycle. The two frontrunners Raila Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto, arguably cut from the same mold, and yet represent a stack difference of characteristics that Kenyans must pick from on August 9. In this installment I share with you the known record of DP Ruto manifestly different from Odinga’s, a record that he has, until now, almost successfully managed to keep off public scrutiny but should be a central basis to Kenyan voters in making informed decisions as they go to the polls on August 9. Ruto would very much prefer this is kept under wraps during this campaign, but this election is too important to ignore the candidates’ records. To Kenyan voters, be cautious, look before you leap. A poem is told of a tender-hearted woman who rescued a poor, half-frozen snake from near death in the winter cold. “Take me in, oh tender woman,” the snake cries out. “Take me in, for heaven’s sake.” So, the tender-hearted woman takes the snake into her own home, warms it by the fire and feeds it milk and honey: “If I hadn’t brought you in, by now you might have died.” But instead of saying thanks, the snake gave her a vicious bite. “I saved you,” cried the woman. “And you’ve bitten me, but why? You know your bite is poisonous, and now I’m going to die.” “Oh shut up, silly woman,” said the reptile with a grin. “You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.” Let’s not forget who Ruto is.
As unflattering as this installment is owing to the deeply dark and macabre activities that Ruto has orchestrated over the years, which speak for themselves, Kenyan voters, especially the youth, are not privy to the truth and must be reminded of who these men are before they head to the polls. “Caveat emptor” (buyer/voter beware). The point of this narrative is not to endorse Raila Odinga who has his own closet skeletons that under any other circumstances will torpedo his quest for president, but they pale when juxtaposed against his opponent. Ruto makes Odinga look angelic and preferable in multiples of 10.
MT. KENYA, “DON’T CUT YOUR NOSE TO SPITE YOUR FACE” – This idiom is straightforward, it means that you do something to revenge or harm someone but end up harms yourself instead. This is to Kikuyus who are unhappy or upset with President Kenyatta and are inclined to vote for Ruto to punish Kenyatta. Don’t do it, you will harm yourselves, not Kenyatta. Again, this plea is to the Kikuyus community that bore the brunt of Ruto’s wrath in Rift Valley, their leaders, specifically those in leadership positions who align themselves to Ruto including Senator Susan Kihika, MPs Moses Kuria, Kimani Inchungwa, Ndindi Nyoro, Kimani Ngunjiri, Alice Wahome, Moses Kuria, Martha Wangari, MP and running mate designate Rigathi Gachagua, among others – they need to take stock of their support for Ruto and put the interests of their community ahead of their own personal ambitions. These leaders need to leverage their positions and proximity to Ruto to safeguard their community’s interests. This is the best time and opportunity for them to test Ruto and resolve the right of return of displaced Kikuyus (IDPs) to their homes and lands in Rift Valley, to compel Ruto to show his true commitment to the welfare of Kikuyus; I am not holding my breath because they are deafeningly silent and chosen to mock and chide President Kenyatta for abandoning Ruto instead. The following is Ruto’s record that he so desperately wants to keep under wraps:
POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE – This tops Ruto’s “list of shame” of unforgivable harm visited on innocent Kenyans and the country that caused deaths and untold and lasting suffering of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Kenyans. Ruto’s conduct in the disputed 2007 elections between incumbent President, the late Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga in targeting non-indigenous ethnic groups, primarily Kikuyus and Kisiis in Rift Valley left an indelible mark on the country’s history for which there is no known recovery. Ruto’s conduct in 2007-2008 PEV atrocities where he’s believed to have funded, organized, and supervised the murder of hundreds of Kikuyus in his home constituency of Eldoret including burning women and children at KIAMBAA church earned him the befitting title of a genocidal maniac and caricature of “Kenya’s Hitler”. Ruto is said to have planned the atrocities way in advance of the elections and was riding on Raila Odinga’s coattails in a premeditated quid pro quo arrangement that guaranteed that he will complete his ethnic cleansing agenda after elections regardless of who won the elections, if Kibaki won it provided a pretext to kill Kikuyus under cover of “spontaneous” protest against stolen elections and if Odinga win it meant a free reign or a license to kill while he (Raila) turned a blind eye to the atrocities, either way Ruto was going to implement his diabolical anti-Kikuyu ethnic cleansing agenda. He led the “MADOADOA” crusade against Kikuyus ahead of elections and all he needed was an excuse which came in handy in December of 2007. The video montage herein speaks for itself as to Ruto’s mindset. His words are fully corroborated by the actions that followed.
His long-standing hate for Kikuyus did not start or end in 2007/2008, like Hitler’s hate for Jews, It has been a long-standing ingrained affliction he obsessed over long before the PEV, it gradually manifested itself every election cycle since 1992 when he would engineer ethnic clashes to evict non-indigenous people, particularly Kikuyus, from Rift Valley. The 2007-2008 was the crescendo that was intended to solve the Kikuyu problem in Rift Valley once and for all, thousands were murdered, and hundreds of thousands more permanently evicted from their homes. According to Benjamin Mkapa, one of the “eminent personalities” led by former UN Secretary General the late Kofi Anan who negotiated a political settlement that ended the Post-Election Violence (PEV), William Ruto was adamant that Kikuyus in Rift Valley must return to their native Central as a condition of peace. He had to be removed from the negotiations before the peace agreement was reached.
RUTO has NEVER once DENIED all attempted to distance himself from the accusations leveled against him because his culpability is overwhelming. Similarly, he has never owned up to his role in the atrocities nor has he atoned in any way, shape, or form nor attempted to make right his wrongs by returning the displaced people to their lands, he has stood in the way and resisted any attempts to restore displaced people to their homes and lands, in fact he personally partook by appropriating for himself 100 acres of land from one of the PEV victims, Mzee Adrian Muteshi. The Courts had to wrest Muteshi’s land from Ruto’s grip and slapped a 5 million Shillings restitution for damages which he REFUSED to pay. Muteshi died without seeing one cent of that judgment.
RUTO BLOCKED PEV VICTIMS FROM RETURNING HOME – The hundreds of thousands of Kenyans who were forcefully evicted from the Rift Valley, mainly Kikuyus and Kisiis, remain displaced in their own country and have a right to return to their homes but Ruto has stood in the way. He has resisted, BLOCKED, I mean REFUSED to allow them back to their homes and lands and the status quo remains to date even as he claims political supremacy and domination of Kikuyus in Central Kenya. Instead, Ruto has pledged to deal with the Kikuyus once he is elected President, I believe him and so should Millions of Kikuyus who he has threatened to “deal with” if he becomes president. When a man shows you who he is, BELIEVE him. Do not doubt Ruto when he tells you what he is going to do to you, he has a very clear record of following through with his threats, vote for him at you own peril.
UNRESOLVED ICC MATTER – Even during these heated campaigns, Ruto still has unfinished business at the International Criminal Court (ICC) where his name looms large, it is front and center of the ongoing trial of his onetime lawyer Paul Gicheru who is accused of witness tampering and obstruction of justice for bribing witnesses to prevent them from testifying against Ruto. Unlike President Kenyatta’s case that was dismissed for lack of evidence, DP Ruto’s case adjourned in a mistrial because of witness tampering. It is subject to recall/revival and going by the Gicheru proceedings it is highly probable that William Ruto will find himself facing revived charges at the ICC again. A vote for Ruto will be an endorsement of the atrocities he committed and if elected President (God forbid), will saddle the country in endless and costly in defending criminal proceedings against him. Kenya cannot afford another bout of a distracted president attending to his criminal case at the ICC, we went through that episode once before with both Kenyatta and Ruto and it was the costliest, distractive, and embarrassing period in Kenya’s history. Bottom-line is Ruto needs to clear his name with respect to PEV and the ICC first before he is considered for the Presidency.
TOO MANY OTHER DEATHS/MURDERS LINKED TO RUTO – It is not enough that Ruto is tied to overt political violence but also covert murders of innocent Kenyans including the deaths of Meshack Yebei, a PEV witness who was poised to testify against him at the Hague but was abducted and murdered in cold blood and his remains found deep in the middle of Tsavo National Park; Jacob Juma, Ruto’s avowed mortal enemy who was gunned down in a hail of bullets, 7 in total, a day after posting in his social media accounts in what turned out to be a self-fulfilling dying prophesy just days before he was killed where he said “The person obsessed with plans to kill me is William Ruto. I am aware about it. I know that my assassination was discussed on Tuesday”; Chris Msando, an IT manager at IEBC who was tortured and murdered days before the 2017 elections after refusing to give Ruto access to protected elections data; Sgt. Kipyegon Kenei who manned Ruto’s office and handled the botched fake arms deal that threatened to expose Ruto’s Billions’ of shillings worth of illicit arms deals, he was brutally murdered at his apartment and Ruto’s men desperately tried to cover it up as a suicide; Cynthia Mwikali, Rachael Ruto’s assistance whose mutilated body was found days after leaking information about Ruto battering (beating) his wife (Rachael); Mohammed Ibrahim Mohammud, a Somali refugee Kenya was killed at Ruto’s Sugoi home just weeks before the 2017 elections in what turned out to be a setup that lured the man to his death and then he was framed as a terrorist who attacked Ruto’s well-fortified residence with a machete; Cyrus Jirongo narrated a first-hand witness account of how Ruto murdered a young man with bare hands years ago and got away with it.
DON’T SECOND GUESS KENYATTA – Stay clear of Ruto folks. President Kenyatta knows a more about William Ruto than most Kenyans, he has determined that Ruto is not suited to succeed him as Kenya’s next president. For Kenyatta to turn on him a.k.a. abandon and walk away from him, to shun him as he has done, should be warning enough for all voters to REJECT Ruto at the ballot box. Do not second guess Kenyatta, do so at your own peril.
The bottom-line is this, William Samoei Ruto has demonstrated his hate for Kikuyus both in word and deed, he has proclaimed what he will do to Kikuyus once he gets in power and that is, he will annihilate them, he will finish what he started at the KIAMBAA church in Eldoret. Those Kikuyus who vote for this maniacal genocidal maniac not only have a death wish but are also passing judgment on their fellow Kikuyus. Let’s call a spade a spade, if after watching these video and reading Ruto’s record you still vote for him, then he’s not the problem, YOU ARE and you deserve every pain and suffering that his win portends. The point is, again, Ruto has too much blood in his hands to be president, do not license Ruto to kill again, don’t gamble with your lives.
