If you needed proof that Kenyans are currently suffering from a serious case of scandal fatigue then look no further than this week’s explosive revelations that the official speech writer and several close associates of President William Ruto allegedly masterminded a scheme to deploy spyware to surveil citizens, manipulate public sentiment and ensure Ruto’s re-election in 2027.
Even more damningly, the plot was to be financed through the National Treasury’s confidential account or directly from the 2024 budgetary allocation.
This isn’t just unethical and breathtakingly illegal conduct but also, in my view, would constitute grounds for impeaching the President if we were still anything close to a sane country.
In fact, our Constitution is very clear on when a president should face impeachment.
Article 145 outlines four grounds: gross violation of the Constitution or other laws, commission of a crime under national or international law, gross misconduct, and incapacity to perform duties.
The spyware scandal ticks all these boxes.
Using public funds to develop technology capable of spying on citizens, monitoring opposition leaders, and creating psychometric profiles is a gross violation of constitutional rights, including the right to privacy (Article 31) and freedom of expression (Article 33).
Additionally, funding such a scheme through confidential accounts raises serious questions about the misuse of public resources, potentially violating laws governing public finance and accountability.
If proven, the allegations also point to serious criminal behaviour, including fraud and possibly threats to human life in a desperate attempt to conceal the scheme from public view.
Mary Wachuka Maina, a software engineer subcontracted for the project, claims she has been receiving death threats from individuals tied to the presidency after the deal collapsed.
She alleges that her work, intended to serve as a political propaganda machine for Ruto’s administration, was funded with taxpayer money, only for her to be left destitute when payments failed to materialise.
There’s a harsh lesson to confront here about how easily some of our fellow citizens are willing to sell us out for a handful of coins but that’s a conversation for another day.
For now, we should grudgingly thank Wachuka for going to court and thereby exposing this shameful plot.
Leadership should be earned through persuasion and actual governance performance and not through coercion and deception.
The spyware scandal also reeks of George Orwell’s 1984.
If the allegations are true, President Ruto not only sanctioned surveillance of journalists and political opponents but also green lit the use of psychometric profiling to manipulate voters.
Such actions recall dark periods in Kenya’s history when the state used cloak-and-dagger tactics to crush dissent.
State House seems keen to drag the country back to those times.
The truth is that these new allegations fit into a troubling pattern of weaponised surveillance and illegal abductions by the state machinery.
Just last month, human rights groups sounded the alarm over the misuse of mobile phone tracking technology by Kenyan authorities to stifle dissent and intimidate critics.
Kenya’s largest telecom provider was implicated in allegations of facilitating illegal wiretaps.
The revelation that the presidency itself, if Wachuka is to be believed, may have been behind such efforts adds a sinister new dimension to these concerns.
Interestingly enough, the prime mover behind the latest scheme is a man who has penned many of the President’s speeches celebrating Kenya’s supposed “new democratic dawn.”
How’s that for a delicious bit of irony?
Despite the severity of the allegations against the State House team, the bombshell revelations have mostly been met with muted outrage because we live in a climate where corruption stories come and go with dizzying regularity.
But Wachuka’s revelations demand more than a weary shrug.
The use of public funds as a personal slush fund alone should ignite national outrage, especially at a time when Kenya is struggling to break free from a crippling debt spiral.
Parliament must therefore act decisively to hold the President accountable and send a clear message that no one, not even the highest officeholder in the land, is above the law.
Author is a lawyer and media practitioner
