Mtaniua na majina! Ruto on Kenyans nicknaming him

President William Ruto with Lands CS Alice Wahome and Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja in Lang'ata/PCS

President William Ruto has said that Kenyans will kill him with nicknames if the trend of coining new aliases for him continues.

Speaking in Lang’ata on the fourth day of his development tour of Nairobi city, Ruto joked that they started by calling him a hustler and moved the name survivor.

He went on to say that Kenyans later on moved to Zakayo, and they are now calling him Kasongo.

The President asked the crowd he was addressing how many names they want him to have.

“Ndugu zangu wa Nairobi, wacha niwaulize? si mtaniua na majina. Mlianza uko mkasema Hustler alafu mkasema Survivor, mkaenda ingine Zakayo, sasa naksia mmefika Kasongo. Majina mtaongeza mpaka ifike ngapi? Bado mtaongeza ama imetosha? Mna maneno. Mnataka majina yangu ifike kumi?” he posed.

This loosely translates to, “My brothers and sisters of Nairobi, aren’t you going to kill me with names. You started by calling me hustler, then survivor, now you have named me Zakayo, now I hear you've reached Kasongo. How many more names will you add? Do you want my names to reach ten?”

While he was Deputy President from 2013 to 2022, Ruto branded himself a hustler owing to his background, having started as a chicken seller and working his way to the top of the political space in the country.

He would then be nicknamed a survivor after he won the 2022 presidential elections, despite many people including the former administration, being against his candidature.

After he became President, Ruto’s administration introduced various taxes, including the housing levy, among others, which many Kenyans were against.

Despite the opposition, the government went ahead to implement the same and Kenyans started referring to the President as Zakayo (Swahili for Zacchaeus the tax collector).

The last name Kassongo was borrowed from Orchestra Super Mazembe band’s song Kassongo. It went viral with memes of a person imitating the song, when things are going wrong, to refer to the state of the country.