When you hear the mention of “State House,” what immediately comes to mind is the official residence of president on State House Road in Nairobi— not the others (state lodges) across the country.
If you were of age during the past presidencies since Jomo Kenyatta’s, you’d relate State House with unadulterated power.
Those powers were curbed by the 2010 Constitution, but many are surprised how President Uhuru Kenyatta has presided over the office without much of the clout and heavy stick it once bore. This is notwithstanding the many times the President and his senior officers have been accused of ignoring judicial orders as if they were above the law.
Anyone who has watched the documentary “Jomo Kenyatta”— or one of them, anyway, has seen businessman Stanley Githunguri narrate how when he was having problems getting necessary approval to construct Lillian Towers, he sought the president’s help.
Githunguri says he was at Gatundu when he made the request, and the then all powerful president asked him to hop in the presidential limo and the two headed to State House.
On the way there, Mzee ordered whoever oversaw issuing approvals for city construction to bring them to State House and be there by the time he arrives!
According to Githunguri, this was done, and the rest is history as to how he built Lillian Towers.
That is raw power and Mzee would exercise it to his death. His successor, Daniel Moi, took that power to another level where, by the time he left State House, there will never be another president wielding that much power again.
Retired President Mwai Kibaki wielded some but nothing close to t Moi and Kenyatta.
And if Kibaki had a fraction of that power, Uhuru has demonstrated he has the least of it. Or more accurately, he has wielded or exercised the least power than any of his predecessors.
It is precisely for this reason that his assistant, Deputy President William Ruto, not only saw it fit to undermine and build his own political mini-force behind the president’s back in their first term, the man from Sugoi has now seen it fit to turn his official residence in Karen to another State House.
The constant parade of MPs and other delegations with hands out for handouts at the residence betrays Ruto’s campaign slogans as nothing but ploys to get to the real State House as president.
Never mind that Ruto has also become somewhat of a master in doublespeak, or speaking from both sides of his mouth, whichever you fancy. He was against BBI but he never came out to say that outright. When the Court of Appeals dealt another blow to the BBI, Ruto says he said it was bad all along.
He may have wished otherwise; the death of BBI also means another nail to the political coffin being nailed shut in all directions by those who have made it known State House Ruto isn’t going.
When security at the 'makeshift State House' was rearranged and cut-back, DP Ruto promptly called the action “diabolical” and his Chief of Staff simultaneously fired off a letter to the IG demanding an explanation. But in the same breadth, he said it was no biggie; all the security can be withdrawn, he can even work with G4S askaris.
This while he has dispatched his foot soldiers to demand investigations at the National Assembly and when Parliamentary committee agreed to investigate and invited CS Fred Matiang’i and IG over the decision, Ruto dismissed the move as a non-issue not worth parliamentary time.
In other words, Ruto is constantly trying to have it both ways and to some degree, he has succeeded but soon he must have a choice to only have one and that is it.
Samuel Omwenga is a legal analyst and political commentator