President William Ruto says he is Kenya’s silver bullet, a capsule of the first four presidents. Placed on the weighing scales of governance, leadership model and style, he is probably right.
All the four embraced pork barrel politics, neopatrimonialism, prebendalism and political particularism. President Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza is the finest there has been in these respects. Ruto knows how to tap the hungers that afflict Kenyans. These hungers are mediated by a huge sense of ethnic sentiment, and accelerated by greed. The two mediators make most Kenyans easy prey to the political elite in divide and rule ploys.
It was India’s Bhabani Bhattacharya who, in 1947, published the classic novel titled So Many Hungers. The book focused on the 1943 famine in Bengal. History believes that the British colonial State consciously stage managed this catastrophe. It was a punishment for India, and especially State of Bengal, for agitating for independence.
However, there were other hungers, too. Hunger for money and power, such as we witness in Kenya. Everyone wants to be MP, MCA, Senator, and all. They want constituency and ward development funds. This is basically for personal displays of greatness, when issuing cheques at public gatherings. Separately, Ministers distribute employment letters at funerals in their native homes.
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The lust for survival is the one hunger that makes people cave in to base things that open the door to pork barrelling and neopatrimonialism The notion of pork barrel politics, as we know, is of American tradition. Slave owners in a gone age used to give salted pork from barrels to their slaves. In return, they expected total loyalty. Today, the notion pertains to using public funds to secure political loyalty. Hence, we see President Ruto unremittingly making forays into Luo Nyanza, to dish out pork. He is investing pork in the 2027 elections.
In gone times, Jomo Kenyatta consciously marginalised Luo Nyanza, because of his fallout with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He took the barrel to other regions, and especially his own Kiambu backyard, to secure their total loyalty. Ruto is also securing loyalty in his Rift Valley backyard. He gives them development and State jobs at everyone else’s expense. He also reminds them that he is their son.
President Moi, too, served heavy pork in the Rift Valley. Elsewhere, he dangled succulent carrots, while also using the stick against those who defied him. Hunger for power and development was an astute tool. It attracted reward, or exclusion, as was necessary. Ruto has been a good student. There is both Moi and Jomo in him in this ethnic-based political particularism.
President Kibaki initially engaged the Rift Valley on a reformist and accommodative agenda of sorts for a region that did not vote for him. Yet, after the humiliating defeat in the 2005 referendum, he shunned the region. He did the same in Nyanza and did not even bother to campaign there for the 2007 elections. It will be interesting to see how Ruto will navigate the regions saying, “Ruto must go.”
His neopatrimonialism in Nyanza, however, leaves little doubt about what he is likely to do. Starve hardcore regions, while suffocating Nyanza with billions of shillings.
Uhuru’s first term selectively marginalised Raila Odinga’s bases in Nyanza and at the Coast. The Coast, especially, complained of neglect with echoes of “Pwani is not Kenya.” Once Odinga and Uhuru were reconciled, however, the pork barrel began rolling in these regions.
Each of these leaders has weaponised development. It flows when political alliances hold. It dries up when they break. Your hungers may be minimised or deepened, depending on how loyal you are to State House. Like those before him, Ruto has little room for politics of right and equity, in preference for politics of hunger, divide and rule.
Finally, Ruto draws from President Moi’s “Tumbo Ideology.” He knows most people can be bought. Hence, he has opened up the gates of State House to ever growing delegations. They throng the place in their thousands, not to listen to what he says, but in eagerness for the envelopes at the end. This is neopatrimonialism at its finest. Power uses public funds to entrench itself by buying loyalty.
So, yes. Ruto is like the first four rolled into one, and even better. However, he will want to carefully ask, on which landscapes? Is it in his human rights record and management of protests, ethnic supremacy, or war on corruption?
-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke
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President William Ruto says he is Kenya’s silver bullet, a capsule of the first four presidents. Placed on the weighing scales of governance, leadership model and style, he is probably right.
All the four embraced pork barrel politics, neopatrimonialism, prebendalism and political particularism. President Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza is the finest there has been in these respects. Ruto knows how to tap the hungers that afflict Kenyans. These hungers are mediated by a huge sense of ethnic sentiment, and accelerated by greed. The two mediators make most Kenyans easy prey to the political elite in divide and rule ploys.
It was India’s Bhabani Bhattacharya who, in 1947, published the classic novel titled So Many Hungers. The book focused on the 1943 famine in Bengal. History believes that the British colonial State consciously stage managed this catastrophe. It was a punishment for India, and especially State of Bengal, for agitating for independence.
However, there were other hungers, too. Hunger for money and power, such as we witness in Kenya. Everyone wants to be MP, MCA, Senator, and all. They want constituency and ward development funds. This is basically for personal displays of greatness, when issuing cheques at public gatherings. Separately, Ministers distribute employment letters at funerals in their native homes.
Follow The Standard
channel
on WhatsApp
The lust for survival is the one hunger that makes people cave in to base things that open the door to pork barrelling and neopatrimonialism The notion of pork barrel politics, as we know, is of American tradition. Slave owners in a gone age used to give salted pork from barrels to their slaves. In return, they expected total loyalty. Today, the notion pertains to using public funds to secure political loyalty. Hence, we see President Ruto unremittingly making forays into Luo Nyanza, to dish out pork. He is investing pork in the 2027 elections.
In gone times, Jomo Kenyatta consciously marginalised Luo Nyanza, because of his fallout with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He took the barrel to other regions, and especially his own Kiambu backyard, to secure their total loyalty. Ruto is also securing loyalty in his Rift Valley backyard. He gives them development and State jobs at everyone else’s expense. He also reminds them that he is their son.
President Moi, too, served heavy pork in the Rift Valley. Elsewhere, he dangled succulent carrots, while also using the stick against those who defied him. Hunger for power and development was an astute tool. It attracted reward, or exclusion, as was necessary. Ruto has been a good student. There is both Moi and Jomo in him in this ethnic-based political particularism.
President Kibaki initially engaged the Rift Valley on a reformist and accommodative agenda of sorts for a region that did not vote for him. Yet, after the humiliating defeat in the 2005 referendum, he shunned the region. He did the same in Nyanza and did not even bother to campaign there for the 2007 elections. It will be interesting to see how Ruto will navigate the regions saying, “Ruto must go.”
His neopatrimonialism in Nyanza, however, leaves little doubt about what he is likely to do. Starve hardcore regions, while suffocating Nyanza with billions of shillings.
Uhuru’s first term selectively marginalised Raila Odinga’s bases in Nyanza and at the Coast. The Coast, especially, complained of neglect with echoes of “Pwani is not Kenya.” Once Odinga and Uhuru were reconciled, however, the pork barrel began rolling in these regions.
Each of these leaders has weaponised development. It flows when political alliances hold. It dries up when they break. Your hungers may be minimised or deepened, depending on how loyal you are to State House. Like those before him, Ruto has little room for politics of right and equity, in preference for politics of hunger, divide and rule.
Finally, Ruto draws from President Moi’s “Tumbo Ideology.” He knows most people can be bought. Hence, he has opened up the gates of State House to ever growing delegations. They throng the place in their thousands, not to listen to what he says, but in eagerness for the envelopes at the end. This is neopatrimonialism at its finest. Power uses public funds to entrench itself by buying loyalty.
So, yes. Ruto is like the first four rolled into one, and even better. However, he will want to carefully ask, on which landscapes? Is it in his human rights record and management of protests, ethnic supremacy, or war on corruption?
-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke
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By Barrack Muluka