“Ruto’s dream of ‘making Kenya a first world‘ is not visionary; it is delusional and a glossy hallucination that deviates from the original tenets of eradicating poverty, ignorance, and diseases, not forgetting corruption and impunity he cannot tame.“

While President William Ruto boasts of steering Kenya toward first-world status, a State House guard lies cold in the mortuary, speared to death by a derailed man right at the gates of power. That single incident captures the brutal irony of Ruto’s Kenya: a nation where the president speaks of greatness while chaos festers at his doorstep. It is a country of pomp without peace, slogans without security, ambition without empathy. Ruto’s dream of “making Kenya a first world” is not visionary; it is delusional, a glossy hallucination built on the crumbling pillars of poverty, ignorance, disease, and corruption he cannot tame.

Ruto imagines skyscrapers and Silicon Valleys while the watchman who guards him dies violently under the same sun that beats down on hungry children and unpaid workers. A Kenyan is on the verge of death after SHA could not replace the EDU Afya that was used to cater for her hospitalization in India. This is not progress; it is moral decay dressed in designer suits. The government parades prosperity in headlines, but the streets tell another story, one of frustration, hunger, and growing hopelessness. The self-styled “hustler president” now governs a nation hustling for survival, where citizens wake up to pay taxes before they can afford breakfast, and where security officers risk death for a system that does not even honor their sacrifice.

When he took power in 2022, Ruto sold himself as the champion of the common man, the hustler rising from the mud to challenge dynastic arrogance. He promised a new dawn of fairness, inclusion, and dignity. Yet, as his administration unfolds, that promise has mutated into betrayal. The Hustler Fund, once hailed as revolutionary, has turned into a hollow, debt-ridden experiment. Its beneficiaries are poorer, not richer. His “bottom-up” economics have become a top-down burden, taxing the poor to fund government vanity projects. Every month, new levies choke citizens, on fuel, on bread, on motor vehicles, on mobile transactions, all in the name of fiscal discipline. But what discipline robs the struggling while rewarding the corrupt?

Ruto’s speeches are crafted with charm, but they crumble under the weight of his contradictions. One day, he preaches humility and prayer; the next, he presides over opulence and arrogance. His government buys new luxury vehicles as hospitals run out of basic medicine. He condemns corruption yet surrounds himself with men whose fingerprints are on every scandal of the past decade. He promises jobs, yet factories close and unemployment soars. The president’s words have become like counterfeit currency, abundant but worthless.

The founding fathers once defined Kenya’s war against poverty, ignorance, and disease as sacred. But Ruto’s Kenya has redefined those enemies as political talking points, not policy priorities. Poverty deepens as inflation and taxation strip dignity from labor. Ignorance thrives as public education collapses under neglect and confusion. Teachers strike, students drop out, and rural schools lack even chalk. Disease reigns where hospitals have become death corridors, lacking drugs, doctors, and decency. And corruption, the immortal Kenyan cancer, metastasizes across every ministry and county. Even the fight against graft is selective: enemies are hunted while allies are rewarded.

How can a nation become “first” when its leaders are last in virtue? Kenya borrows billions, yet the roads crumble, the farmers starve, and youth die crossing deserts in search of greener pastures. The very people Ruto vowed to uplift now bear the heaviest burdens of his fiscal obsession. His economic reforms serve foreign lenders and local cartels more than the citizen. The World Bank applauds his austerity; the wananchi curse his taxes.

Even Kenya’s moral health mirrors this decay. Crime is rising, mental illness is ignored, and desperation festers in every estate and village. That State House guard, speared to death while protecting the very symbol of authority, is not just a victim of madness. He is a metaphor for Kenya itself: loyal, struggling, faithful, and ultimately abandoned by the same system he served. His death, unacknowledged in the president’s speeches about global leadership and prosperity, exposes the void between image and integrity.

Ruto’s obsession with international validation, endless summits, climate conferences, and photo opportunities — betrays a leader more concerned with applause abroad than reform at home. He calls for a just world order while injustice chokes his people. He lectures on green growth as Kenya’s forests vanish and garbage piles up. He preaches accountability even as his government silences critics and rewards mediocrity. This is not leadership, it is theater.

A nation cannot pray or PR its way to greatness. Kenya will not become “first-world” through decrees or hashtags. It must begin with moral reconstruction: feeding the hungry before funding delegations, paying teachers before parading diplomats, and jailing thieves even when they wear designer suits. It must mean building classrooms before cathedrals, hospitals before highways, justice before jubilation.

Ruto’s dream of “firstness” collapses under the weight of its hypocrisy. He cannot export an image of success while importing despair. He cannot claim divine favor while turning a blind eye to suffering. The problem is not Kenya’s potential, it is Ruto’s priorities. His ambition outpaces his empathy. His vision is not grounded in the pain of his people but in the applause of his followers.

Every empire of illusion eventually falls. Ruto’s government, if it continues this course, will be remembered not for transformation but for the widening gap between the ruler and the ruled. Kenya does not need a first-world fantasy; it needs first-hand justice. It needs a president who listens before he lectures, serves before he travels, and reforms before he campaigns.

Until then, his speeches about prosperity will sound like cruel jokes told over the wails of a dying nation, a nation where even the guard at the gate of power is not safe. Kenya cannot be first world when its conscience is last.

Disclaimer: This Editorial reflects the writer’s personal analysis and opinion on the current political and socio-economic state of Kenya. It is not intended to defame, incite, or promote hostility toward any individual or institution. The views expressed herein are meant to provoke constructive dialogue on governance, accountability, and public policy in Kenya.