By Arch. Dr. D.K. Gitau | The Diaspora Times

Kenya stands not merely at a political crossroads but at a profound moral and constitutional reckoning—one that forces the nation to confront fundamental questions about the meaning of leadership, the integrity of democracy, and the sacred covenant between state and citizen. At the epicenter of this reckoning is President William Ruto: a man who, though he has scaled the summit of personal ambition, has stumbled tragically at the foot of public legitimacy.

Ruto’s rise to power is a tale of audacity, calculation, and relentless pursuit—a political climb forged through shifting alliances, populist rhetoric, and sheer tactical endurance. He styled himself as the “hustler-in-chief,” the self-made outsider determined to disrupt Kenya’s entrenched dynasties and deliver power to the so-called common mwananchi. On paper, he won the election. But in reality, elections alone do not confer legitimacy; they merely inaugurate the fragile and ongoing social contract between the ruler and the ruled.

From the moment he assumed office, a subtle but unmistakable shift occurred. The euphoria of victory gave way to a spreading national malaise. Ruto may have seized State House, but he has failed spectacularly to capture the heart of the Republic. Rather than heal divisions, his leadership has deepened them—socially, economically, regionally, and generationally. Far from becoming the great unifier he promised to be, he has emerged as a symbol of growing national frustration, alienation, and resentment.

Across the country—in urban centers, rural towns, on social media, in pulpits, and through swelling street protests—the voice of disillusionment grows louder by the day. Chants of “tumechoka!” echo with increasing defiance. Every speech, every policy rollout is met not with applause, but with mounting skepticism. This is not the usual grumbling of a restless opposition. It is a collective moral indictment from a public that feels deceived, demeaned, and discarded.

This, unquestionably, is not the script Ruto imagined.

His presidency has devolved into a cautionary tale of how the pursuit of personal power can corrode public purpose. Despite frantic efforts to reinvent himself as a Pan-African statesman—jetting from one summit to another, pontificating on continental unity—his leadership rings hollow both at home and abroad. The international community is unmoved by theatrics. At home, the performance is wearing thin. No amount of foreign standing ovations can silence the angry, impoverished voices in the streets of Nairobi, Kisumu, or Eldoret.

Beneath the carefully choreographed optics lies a deeper unraveling. Ruto appears increasingly isolated, erratic, and tone-deaf. His public pronouncements swing wildly between defensive bravado and quiet desperation. Unprompted declarations that he is “not mad,” that he “cannot be threatened,” that he “will not fail,” betray a profound internal unease—the creeping realization that his imagined destiny is slipping through his grasp.

What the country now faces is not merely a political crisis but a psychological one. The President seems gripped by a messianic delusion: the belief that he alone holds the answers, that opposition is not a democratic right but a betrayal of progress, that critics are not fellow citizens but enemies of the state. This dangerous self-aggrandizement has spawned a toxic political culture of sycophancy, fear, and deceit. His inner circle has calcified into an echo chamber where loyalty trumps truth and praise is mandatory currency.

Instead of governing, the administration performs. Instead of solving real problems, it manufactures narratives. The so-called “empowerment tours” and staged “development forums” are little more than propaganda carnivals—empty shows designed to mask the absence of meaningful governance. The machinery of the state remains stuck in perpetual campaign mode, while the realities of economic hardship, social injustice, and youth disillusionment intensify by the day.

Particularly obscene is the exploitation of religion. The regime has shamelessly weaponized church donations to sanitize corruption and shield itself from moral scrutiny. Yet even some among the clergy, long willing accomplices to political power, have begun to distance themselves. The winds are shifting. Sanctuary itself is no longer a safe space for the regime’s excesses. Spiritual endorsement cannot replace moral legitimacy.

Facing mounting opposition, Ruto has not chosen introspection but escalation. His so-called “broad-based government”—a desperate cobbling together of former adversaries—has exposed itself as nothing more than an alliance of survival, not substance. Far from fostering unity, it has amplified public cynicism, revealing a presidency held hostage by political expediency, not principle.

Worse still, the regime has waged an insidious war on truth itself. Economic suffering is dismissed as mere perception. Protest is criminalized. Dissent is vilified. Civil society is harassed. Journalists are threatened. Facts have become the first casualties in a desperate bid to maintain control. This is not democracy. It is a slow, calculated descent into authoritarianism—dripped out in the language of reform but executed through the instruments of repression.

At the heart of this unfolding tragedy is a simple yet devastating contradiction: the clash between ego and leadership. Kenya did not need a savior. It needed a servant. The presidency is not a trophy. It is not an altar of personal glorification. It is a burden—a sacred duty entrusted temporarily by the people, whose consent must be constantly renewed through humility, integrity, and service.

To govern is to serve. To lead is to listen. A leader is measured not by the heights he climbs, but by how many he lifts along the way. Kenyans are not asking for miracles. They are pleading for honesty, fairness, and justice. They are calling for the promise of the constitution to be lived—not recited.

It is not too late for William Ruto to pivot—to trade hubris for humility, spectacle for substance. But that would require the courage to confront his own illusions, to admit that power is transient, and that leadership is earned not through command, but through consent.

History is unforgiving to leaders who mistake flattery for love, fear for loyalty, and silence for consent. It is merciless to those who gamble the soul of a nation for the vanity of one man.

The question confronting Kenya is no longer whether William Ruto holds power. He does. The real question is whether he can exercise it with moral clarity—or whether he will allow his presidency to sink into the annals of betrayal and wasted opportunity.

Kenya watches. Kenya speaks. And power, in the end, always passes.

When will this President finally choose country over self?

Arch. Dr. D.K. Gitau is a columnist with The Diaspora Times and a passionate advocate for civic accountability, ethical leadership, and diaspora engagement in African governance.