Why President Uhuru Snubbed Ruto during the 59th Madaraka Day celebrations

In his last official address to the nation, President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta chose to snub his deputy William Samoei Ruto in an unprecedented deviation from the normal state protocol. Normally according to state protocol, the Deputy President should be the one to invite his boss the President to make his remarks. 

Today Kenyans witnessed a rare show of the cold relations between the president and his Deputy in the open. Kenyans who were quick to notice this took to the social media either in support of or in condemnation of the incident, depending on which side of the political divide they belong to. Earlier on when the president arrived you could tell from his demeanor and body language that he was up to something. 

When greeting Ruto he avoided eye contact with him, greeting him brashly, and proceeded to greet other leaders spending more time with them especially Martha Karua than he did with his Deputy. When the president was leaving he met Raila Odinga and greeted him, had a chitchat with him, and when he spotted Ruto making his way to him he quickly ducked into his waiting car leaving Ruto stranded on the driveway.

                                                 Uhuru and his deputy Ruto

Also read: Why Baba Ngina and Baba Kemei will never see eye to eye.

Why would Uhuru Kenyatta do this on his last public holiday as president? Perhaps the events of the last few meetings that they both graced could shed some light and insights into this question and many more questions on the heads of Kenyans on this 59th Madaraka Day. First, let it be known that this being Uhuru's last official holiday to preside as president, he was keen to be the highlight of it and not allow it to be marred by sideshows from his deputy. Ruto being a master of political theatrics must have planned some sideshows to 'prove' to his boss that "kwa ground vitu ni different" given their frosty relations. There is no way Uhuru would have allowed that. He was keen to make this day his own and a platform to catalog his administration's achievements, which he did in so many words literally. Secondly, the way the Deputy president has been conducting himself in the presence of his boss leaves a lot to be desired. Whenever he gets a chance to speak, in the presence of the President, Ruto always takes that opportunity to undermine the office and the person of the President. He has gone as far as organizing crowds to jeer the president while wildly cheering him even at the state funeral and burial of the late President Mwai Kibaki. Ruto has proved himself as capable of humiliating his boss as long as it gives him some political mileage. Ruto has been disrespecting Uhuru in almost every public function he is invited to speak and the highlight of this is when he publicly referred to Kibaki as "the best president Kenya has ever had" while Uhuru, his boss is seated among the mourners.

                                                A screenshot from one of Ruto's groups.

This disrespect was also witnessed during the National prayer breakfast when Ruto broke protocol and invited Martha Karua to speak before inviting the president. It's only the President that's allowed to break protocol in such a manner, and Ruto knew this. Ruto also knew that if he didn't invite Karua to speak Uhuru would have done it(just the way he always invites Raila Odinga to speak) and there is no way he would let Uhuru have the honors to do that and "bask in the glory" alone. This can be proven by the tweets his propaganda team sent on Twitter, terming it like a gentleman's gesture among other things. Ruto wastes no opportunity to publicly demean the president, protocol be damned, and that's why he chose to beat the president to it and invite Martha Karua before Uhuru does it. To him, any opportunity to compete with his boss is always welcomed especially if it will score him some cheap political goals.

On this Madaraka Day, unknown to Ruto and his Kenya Kwanza coalition strategists, the President was privy to some intel of a planned mass walkout on him by a section of some hired crowd. The intel talked of an elaborate plan by Ruto and his henchmen to disrupt Madaraka Day by booing the azimio leader Raila Odinga when he rose to speak while cheering and clapping heartily for Ruto when he spoke. Then, as Ruto invited the head of state, the hired goons were supposed to stage a mass walkout on him as the President rose to speak. This was meant to send a strong political message to people that Ruto is the preferred candidate. Seemingly the president pulled a fast one on his deputy by disregarding protocol and thus averting the intended embarrassment planned by Ruto. Nonetheless, a section of the hired crowd, having been denied an opportunity to stage the jeerings and walkouts as scripted, staged a walkout as the president was speaking seemingly in response to Uhuru not giving their master a chance to speak. Nonetheless, this had less of an impact than the originally scripted mass walkout would have had were it to be allowed to happen. Uhuru denying Ruto a chance to speak caught them unawares as this has never happened before, sending them back to the drawing board and that's when they must have decided to stage the walkout seen as Uhuru was speaking not forgetting the individual who was running in the field towards the president. This too was part of the script or rather a hurriedly hatched-out plan after the original one was compromised.

On the eve of Madaraka Day the chief propagandist of Kenya Kwanza, Dennis Itumbi had posted some information on Twitter in an attempt to paint Uhuru and the government at large as one that had planned this. This was meant to hoodwink the public into thinking that Ruto was the victim and in the end garner some sympathy votes. Kenya Kwanza has mastered the art of opinion manipulation, the Cambridge Analytica way. to them, the end justifies the means. Unknown to them, this too seemed to have been picked by the National Intelligence Service and appropriately passed on to the office of the president.

Ruto was not part of the meeting the President held at the statehouse with his cabinet before him officiating Madaraka Day. The meeting that could most likely be the last for Uhuru's administration was seen as Uhuru's way of officially bidding his cabinet farewell as we head to the general elections. The president in his Madaraka Day address thanked them for a job well done while at the same time indirectly telling Ruto and other naysayers off for the attempts to sabotage his administration. In one of his longest speeches ever, the president highlighted all the economic achievements realized by his administration while stressing that much of it has been done in his second term, after the 'handshake'. In a speech that was full of innuendos and political undertones, the president told Kenyans that they had a chance to elect a first-ever woman Deputy President while at the same time doing away with corrupt leaders in the coming general election. This was an apparent reference to Martha Karua and the Kenya Kwanza respectively. Without saying much Uhuru seemed to tell Kenyans to elect the Azimio candidates.

The president's actions to deny his deputy a chance to humiliate him have been met by condemnation from Ruto's sympathizers, but that's expected especially knowing how angry they must be having been denied the chance to effect a plan they had spent days or even months to plan. This should inform Ruto and his men that you can't fight the state nor scheme against the state and get away with it unless the state allows you some deliberate wins. Ruto's biggest mistake was to underestimate Uhuru. He mistook him for a lame-duck president and from where am sitting there is more to come from the statehouse, this is just but a tip of the iceberg. Ruto should brace himself for a bruising and dirty fight from the president who has nothing to lose. The fight has just begun.