Where’s water as Kenya’s beard burns?

When a frequently travelling President makes a decree against “non-essential travel by public office bearers” (including himself), he is bowing to the greatest force on earth: the will of the people. 

Like a rat forced out of its hole in the noonday sun, Kenya’s President, William Ruto, has finally walked out of his castle to face the people, his two hands on his head – literally.

This was the man making over 40 trips abroad in a year, equivalent to more than two trips a month! Defending his travels, he said he was seeking foreign investment and job opportunities for Kenyans.

Kenyan youths point out that the world now has communication tools like Zoom and Google Meet.

A toll of 50 Kenyans dead and 413 injured (between June 20 and July 17) has brought him to his knees, as it will do, inevitably, to every leader who thinks that the impregnable walls of a Presidential palace and the deadliest weapons in their arsenal can prevail over the will of the people.

Live bullets, rubber bullets, teargas and cannons of chemicalised or dyed water generating a pressure of more than 1.2 megapascals have turned the tourism paradise of Africa into a bloodbath.

The tough-talking was over for President Ruto. He abandoned the new taxes. Next, on July 11, he fired his entire cabinet – apart from the Foreign Minister. The protesters were demanding that Parliament reject the 2024 Finance Bill, which sought to increase taxes on nearly everything, including bread and diapers!

Indeed, there were so many taxes that Kenyans used to mockingly refer to Ruto as “Zakayo” – a Swahili word for the biblical figure Zacchaeus, who is portrayed in the Christian holy book as a greedy tax collector.

The government had said revenue from the taxes would be used to maintain damaged roads. However, the people said Kenyans were tired of tightening their belts while the ruling class loosened theirs; that they could not continue to bite the bullet only for the politicians to bite chocolates, apples and grapes!

Measures

Today’s article is prompted by the raft of measures which President Ruto has been forced to announce to appease the anger of the people.

First, he withdrew the Finance Bill which contained the proposed tax hikes. It has not been so reported anywhere, but Yours Truly is certain that the Kenyan President, sweating in his fully air-conditioned palatial villa, may have remembered the immediate cause of the first ever Liberian anti-government demos against the government of William Tubman – called the “Rice Riots” of 1979.

Those protests, the beginning of the fall of President Tubman, were against an increase in the price of rice! For readers who might not know, Liberia is to rice as Ghana is to fufu or banku and Nigeria is to eba. That was how insensitive any government could be.  

Finally, on Friday, July 5, Ruto, caught between the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cut deficits and a hard-pressed population reeling from rising living costs, succumbed.

He announced measures of appeasement, including: 
• Massive cuts in government spending by as much as US$1.39 billion;
• Scrapping of the obnoxious Finance Bill (the trouble causer!) containing the tax increases 
• Reduction of Presidential advisors by 50 per cent.
• Reduction of state spending on the First Lady and spouses of the Deputy President and the Prime Cabinet Secretary.
• Suspension of non-essential travel by public office bearers. 
• As many as 47 state corporations with overlapping functions are to be dissolved. Staff in the affected agencies are to be transferred to ministries and agencies.
• Purchase of vehicles suspended for 12 months, except for security agencies.

And now, dear reader – especially if you are an African – read the most touching tale of all.

Following the announcement of the new policy measures, Ruto hosted a live audio forum on X (formerly Twitter), meant to engage with young people.

Over and above the barrage of questions about police brutality, corruption and the economy, one activist, Osama Otero, questioned Ruto about abductions of protesters by state security agents, saying he had been taken at 3 a.m. by men in plain clothes, blindfolded and taken to a house to be questioned.

"Mr President, are we in a terrorist country?" Otero asked.

Ruto apologised – an African strong-man saying sorry to his people! The President remembered history. Tough-talking impunity did not save either the almighty Emperor Napoleon or his wife, Marie-Antoinette. 

A day came, in 1789, when the poor in France, faced with soldiers armed to the teeth, defiantly marched forward, declaring, “We are here by the will of the people and we will not leave even at the point of the bayonet.”

If Ruto, or any African President, ever thought bullets could silence hunger pangs, there was history to learn from. Ghanaians have a saying: “If your neighbour’s beard is on fire, you place a bucket of water by yours.

The writer is Executive Director,
Centre for Communication and Culture.
E-mail: ashonenimil@gmail.com