Ruto should realise his friends are worse than the worst enemy

It has been almost four years since I offered to lend Deputy President William Ruto my copy of Wanted Dread and Alive, an album by reggae maestro Peter Tosh.

The offer still stands, and with each passing day it’s becoming more critical that he listens to the song, "Guide me From my Friends" (for I know my enemies).

If he doesn’t have a kinanda — the ancient gadget that plays good old-fashioned vinyl discs — I can direct him to a fellow at Kenyatta Market who has an amazing collection.

Here are abridged lyrics of the song he needs to listen and groove to:

"Jah guide me from my friends, for I know my enemies /

They will come and sit round your table / Wanting to kill you like Cain kill Abel / Only trying to find an easy way to eliminate you.

Your enemies stay far from you / They don’t want to see you / While your friends will come with a smiling face… /

Jah guide me from my friends, for I know my enemies."

ICC SAGA

The last time I recommended that Mr Ruto listen keenly to this song was in September 2015.

So-called allies had called a prayer rally to purportedly lend support when he stood in the International Criminal Court (ICC) dock.

The violent and inflammatory rhetoric coming out of the rally did not help his case at all.

Mr Ruto and his co-accused, President Uhuru Kenyatta, were eventually discharged, but not because of histrionics at political rallies.

The Deputy President is facing an uncomfortable spotlight once again, this time from the anti-corruption drive launched by President Kenyatta.

If Mr Ruto takes a break from the perpetual campaign trail to examine why he’s the centre of so much attention, he will discover that his supposed friends are the ones pointing fingers in his direction every time corruption is mentioned.

FALSE FRIENDS

All manner of fellows are shouting from the rooftops in alleged support of Mr Ruto even where he has not been mentioned in any investigation or prosecution.

There is also the bunch of miscreants running scared about their impending arrests for corruption, who find convenient political shelter in the pitiful lie that they are being victimised because of supporting the DP.

But, those so-called friends, with their cheap politics, are doing a great disservice to the DP. They are doing more than the Opposition ever could to divide Jubilee Party and harm its prospects of retaining power come the next elections.

Their increasingly rude attacks directed at President Kenyatta serve only to widen the gulf between the President and his deputy, making more certain the threat of an irreconcilable split.

HONEST ADVISERS

Every time they mention the name ‘Ruto’ in their self-serving intervention, they further drive the perception that the DP is the face of corruption in Kenya and leader of the forces in the government resisting the war on graft.

Mr Ruto will sooner or later learn the hard way that his foot soldiers and surrogates are wittingly or unwittingly working against him.

He’ll learn that it’s far better to surround yourself with honest advisers who will pull you back when you are wrong rather than sycophants only out to catch attention with their loud noises.

I repeat: With friends like those, the DP needs no foes.

* * *

I find it dishonest and utterly hypocritical to unleash superlatives on a departed soul you might have had no time for in life.

It is worse when those praises are outright lies, so that a person of ill-repute is suddenly transformed into an angelic figure guaranteed a place in Heaven.

However, if there is one outstanding person I can eulogise without reservation, it would be Kibra Member of Parliament Ken Okoth, who died late last week.

I doubt if there has ever been an elected politician in Kenya to match Mr Okoth as a genuine servant-leader; an MP who served his people instead of treating them as mere voting machines or stepping stones; one who transcended the ethnic cards and crude power plays that mar Kenyan politics.

FOCUSED LEADER

My admiration for Mr Okoth multiplied when a person very close to me organised an initiative in Kibra aimed at giving deprived youth a chance in life.

I was present at the ‘graduation’ of young men and women who had completed an entrepreneurship programme and was impressed by Mr Okoth’s inspirational talk.

He welcomed and supported the programme in his constituency, unlike many other MPs in Nairobi who were suspicious that it had political motives. He had no time to be diverted by petty insecurities.

Fare thee well, my friend.

[email protected] @MachariaGaitho