William Ruto parallel in last of Kanu dinosaurs

For those who missed the free show, a recap will help.

At the burial of the mother of Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua two weeks ago, and attended by Deputy President William Ruto, Kieni MP Kanini Kega publicly presented half a million cash donation which he said had been given to him by President Uhuru Kenyatta to help with burial arrangements.

Dr Ruto wasn’t amused and publicly rebuked the MP for usurping his role as “the only person sworn in to deputise the Head of State”.

The confrontation escalated to a face off in an evening Sunday show on a vernacular TV station two days later where a vocal MP in the DP camp, Ndindi Nyoro, alleged the money presented by the Kieni MP didn’t come from President Kenyatta but was given to the MP by a powerful official at Harambee House who doesn’t see eye to eye with the DP.

Mr Kega denied it and instead alleged it is Dr Ruto who presents huge cash donations in the name of the President when the money is from his own pocket.

Well, there is no knowing the truth unless the President speaks for himself – and you can bet he won’t!

KANYINGI VS RUTO

If nothing else, the incident in Nyeri took one down memory lane to the days of a political colossus who strode central Kenya region in days of Kanu’s one party rule, and who had striking difference but as many similarities with DP Ruto.

Twenty-three-year-old William Ruto was a second year student at the University of Nairobi in February 1989 when one Simon Kuria Kanyingi suddenly surfaced on the political scene.

In two ways, the two men are as different as chalk and cheese. Ruto is well schooled and can hold his own anywhere in the world.

He capped his academic portfolio with a PhD in a rare science whose name I am not sure Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi can pronounce.

To the contrary, Kanyingi was academically challenged and nobody seems to remember having been his teacher or schoolmate at any level, anywhere.

Physically, Ruto is of above-average height, while Kanyingi was pint-sized and nicknamed Zakayo for his resemblance with biblical Zacchaeus in both height and love for ill-gotten shekel.

The last of contrasts between the two is whereas Kanyingi was the aggressor in the fall of a vice president called Josephat Karanja, Ruto is a victim in what one David Murathe calls “end of the road”.

CASH DONATIONS

In the rest of their political careers, several parallels stand out in DP Ruto and politician Kanyingi, who died five years ago.

Both suddenly stormed the political scene from nowhere in a February three years apart.

Before February 1989, the Kuria Kanyingi name was unheard of in the political scene.

He had been working as an apprentice mechanic in the department of motor vehicle inspection at the Ministry of Transport.

At his first public appearance, he was introduced as the deputy director of motor vehicle inspection, a hitherto non-existent post.

He instantly hit the headlines because of the reverence and protocols accorded to him by the government machinery.

Though relatively a junior functionary, at public rallies attended even by Cabinet ministers, he would be the last to speak.

More significantly, he is the one who “brought greetings” in form of huge cash donations from the Head of State.

When asked by the media how he first came to know and make friends with President Daniel Moi, Kanyingi told a story that once upon a time when the latter was vice president, his car broke down on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway.

Kanyingi, the mechanic, happened to pass by and played the Good Samaritan. Henceforth, a friendship blossomed.

*****

MOI IMPRESSED

On the other hand, the Ruto name first came to public domain in February 1992 when a high profile Kanu outfit called Youth for Kanu ’92 (YK ’92) was formed to campaign for the ruling party in the country’s first multiparty presidential election.

It isn’t clear how he came to the attention of State House, where selection on YK ’92 members was done.

Word has it that Moi first came to know youthful Ruto when a delegation of university students from Uasin Gishu was invited to the President’s Kabarak home.

The head of state reportedly was greatly impressed with the eloquence of the young man and had him added to the list of few students included in a presidential trip to Asia.

One of Ruto’s contemporaries at the UoN Chiromo campus told me that while the rest of the students used their stipend on “useless” luxuries during the trip, young Ruto bought pieces of electronics popular with students, which he sold back home, making a tidy profit.

The “hustler” spirit goes back a long way! It is the useful contacts made during the presidential trip that youthful Ruto would use to gradually worm his way into Moi’s State House, the story goes.

It isn’t clear what engaged Ruto after YK ’92 was acrimoniously disbanded in 1993 up to 1997 when he was elected Eldoret North MP.

Most likely it was “hustling”. Mark you the DP never had an 8-5 job until he was elected MP and appointed assistant minister.

DON'T OUTSHINE MASTER

Whatever “hustling” he did after YK ’92 must have been rewarding enough because whereas at his wedding in 1993 he borrowed the bridal car – a black Mercedes – from his MP, one Rueben Chesire, by 1997 he was well endowed to oust the MP.

Some little digression here: apparently, Ruto has a little problem obeying Robert Greene’s No. 1 Law of Power: “Never outshine the master”.

In YK’92, he broke ranks with his boss, one Cyrus Jirongo, when he became the “cleverer”.

In 1997, he outsmarted his friend and mentor Rueben Chesire to dethrone him as MP.

In 2007, he broke ranks with – of all people - the person who “discovered him” at Kabarak, Daniel Moi.

In 2009, he threw dust on his 2007 election soulmate and boss Raila Odinga. And now it is alleged the root cause of his political problems is an attempt to outsmart the man who used to call him “my brother William”.

Back to the story on the DP and Kuria Kanyingi: before Ruto, only the latter had carried money for “donations” in a rucksack.

In the later days, the equivalent of a rucksack was the tradition sisal-sewn Kiondo.

GROWTH PROJECTS

In those days when only the President was known to donate a six figure – usually Sh100,000 – Kanyingi broke the ceiling by dishing out three times as much and topping with another Sh100,000 “from” the Head of State!

Like Ruto, Kanyingi was also in love with “launching projects”. His favourite was a Women’s Bus Project.

It later emerged that it was the same bus which would be presented to one women group this Saturday and repainted in different colours to be presented to yet another and another women group in a different area.

Like the DP, Kanyingi also loved entertaining delegations at his two separate rural homes in Tigoni, off Limuru Road.

He was a master in the old Kanu divide-and-rule tactics that on the same day he would host two hostile groups at his separate homes.

At one time there was also an “assassination” plotted on Kuria Kanyingi by top government officials meeting at a hotel on Thika Road – where else?

Indeed, two councillors from Kiambu - who Kanyingi named as “accomplices” - were arrested and locked up for a week, only to be released for lack of evidence.

BBI AGENDA

Like with the DP, at one time Kanyingi was best of buddies with Rigathi Gachagua, the Mathira MP.

In those days the latter was a district officer (DO) in Limuru and went by the name Geoffrey Gachagua.

So close they were that it was difficult to tell whether the latter was employed by Kanyingi or by the taxpayer.

Lastly, Kanyingi, like Ruto, believed in a zero-sum game – either "We" or “Them” but nothing like what Ruto calls BBI “deceit”. I doubt Kuria Kanyingi would have supported the BBI were he alive.

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