David Ndii is dead wrong on Ruto

Economist David Ndii. 

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

By Makau Mutua

Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC.

What you need to know:

• Dr Ndii was an important cog in Nasa’s political warehouse.
• For the sake of his integrity and conscience, he needs to be honest with himself, and straight with the Kenyan people

In June, former Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama called me out of the blue. I was stunned. I have only met Mr Muthama once in my life, and had never spoken with him on the phone, or exchanged any messages.

What the esteemed politician said next almost caused me a massive coronary. Without much ado, Mr Muthama told me that he had “taken charge” of DP William Ruto’s presidential campaign. He then launched into a diatribe against “dynasties”. Then the kicker – he was calling to ask me to join Mr Ruto’s campaign for State House. He told me Mr Ruto would call me the following day. He added that economist David Ndii was already in Dr Ruto’s bag.

The next day, Mr Muthama repeatedly called me. In between, an unmarked Kenyan number called my phone frantically. I never answered any of the calls. No conversation ever took place between Mr Ruto and me. I only heard one more time from Mr Muthama, lamenting he “couldn’t raise” [reach] me.

I detail this episode to demonstrate the extraordinary lengths to which the Ruto campaign has gone to corral intellectuals and members of the civil society to its corner. My antipathy towards Mr Ruto’s push for State House isn’t a top secret. I guess his view – and that of his brain trust – was that bagging me would be a coup. That’s how Mr Muthama represented the “capture” of Dr Ndii.

Read: Ndii: I don't mind working with Ruto to defeat 'dynasties' 

Dr Ndii, a leading intellectual and renowned economist, has every right to associate with whomever he chooses. He can advise anyone he likes. Dr Ndii was an important cog in Nasa’s political warehouse. It’s his democratic right to turn coat and hawk his intellectual wares to anyone willing to buy.

Integrity and conscience

 However, Dr Ndii isn’t entitled to his own facts. For the sake of his integrity and conscience, he needs to be honest with himself, and straight with the Kenyan people. He miserably failed both tests in an interview he gave the Saturday Nation on October 3, 2020. That unburdening was a miserable attempt to come clean. Let me tell you why Dr Ndii is dead wrong.

I am pleased Dr Ndii has come out of the closet, and shown his true colours. He’s been ducking for months. Several months ago, he attempted to convince the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) – the leading rights NGO – that both the KHRC and civil society should work with Mr Ruto.

He vigorously argued that civil society shouldn’t have second thoughts supporting any unscrupulous politician to protect the Constitution, defeat Jubilee’s Uhuru Kenyatta’s “BBI succession” plans, and lay waste to “dynasties”. He asked civil society to hold its nose and embrace Mr Ruto. The KHRC, for its part, sent Dr Ndii packing. There’s no conceivable universe in which the KHRC would work with Mr Ruto.

Dr Ndii’s Nation interview was Orwellian. The one-time progressive argues Mr Ruto is the better choice between him and the so-called “dynasties”. He blames the “rise” of the so-called “hustler nation” on Mr Kenyatta’s disastrous reign. Dr Ndii conveniently forgets Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have been Siamese twins ruling together as Jubilee since 2013.

They’ve ruined Kenya together. It’s only since March 2018 – after the Handshake between Mr Odinga and Mr Kenyatta – that Mr Ruto was sidelined. He’s still in government and openly pushes Jubilee’s agenda. In fact, he’s fighting tooth and nail to stay in government and become Jubilee’s 2022 flagbearer. What will Dr Ndii do if Mr Kenyatta endorses Mr Ruto for 2022?

Political scion

Jubilee’s failures are squarely Mr Ruto’s failures. It’s Mr Ruto who eagerly yoked himself to the so-called “dynasties”. Mr Ruto is the political scion of Kanu’s Daniel Moi, a leading “dynasty”. He can’t have his cake and eat it too. It’s laughable for Dr Ndii to describe Mr Ruto as a “hustler”. It stretches credulity to ascribe to Mr Ruto the leadership of a so-called “hustler nation”.

 If Dr Ndii wants a real hustler, I advise him to embrace Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko. Mr Sonko, a self-described thief, fraudster, and jailbird, is a semi-illiterate man who rose to the inner sanctum of the state by “hustling”. Mr Ruto is the exact opposite. The corrupt Kanu-Moi state manufactured him.

Dr Ndii tries an intellectual gimmick by coining the term “wheelbarrownomics”. That dog won’t hunt because it’s a lie. Mr Ruto and Jubilee promised a digital revolution. How then does he resort to giving out pitiable Stone Age wheelbarrows to the “wretched of the earth”?

Even if he gives a wheelbarrow to every youth, what value will it add? Politicians Kalonzo Musyoka, Mr Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi, Martha Karua and Kivutha Kibwana have less baggage than Mr Ruto. Why the binary choice?

Dr Ndii any Kenya can find an untainted progressive to run for State House. His beef is that he was cut out of the BBI. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

@makaumutua