By TEE NGUGI

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President William Ruto is a man who, during key moments in Kenya’s history, chooses the wrong side of history in terms of his actions.

On July 7, 1990, young Kenyans, who were more or less Ruto’s age mates, took to the streets to protest President Moi’s dictatorship.

Hundreds were mowed down by the police, but the protests forced Moi to repeal Section 2A of the Constitution, which criminalised formation of political parties.

Before the repeal, those suspected of harbouring nonconformist thoughts, let alone intentions of forming a political party, would be arrested and tortured at Nyayo House Torture chambers, before being sentenced to years in prison. Every year, we commemorate that day in 1990 as Saba Saba Day.

During those tumultuous times, Mr Ruto joined a vehemently pro-Moi organisation called YK’92. In the election of 1992, Moi squeezed out a narrow victory over a divided opposition. But, even with Moi at the helm, history was now in a post-Moi era.

In the watershed elections of 2002, Ruto again chose to stick with Moi and his protégé Uhuru Kenyatta’s losing side.

Read: NGUGI: Youth triggered overdue talk on the state of nationhood

In 2010, he campaigned vigorously against the 2010 Constitution, which sought to finally transition Kenya into a modern constitutional democracy. Ruto’s choices were no doubt informed by a conservative, some might say retrogressive, worldview, which, in unguarded moments, finds expression.

For instance, when Moi passed away in 2020, Mr Ruto would opine that “Moi brought democracy to Kenya.”

Oh, really? A vast majority of Kenyans would beg to differ with that view.

Then, in an interview after the recent Gen Z protests, he said the MPs who voted for the Finance Bill were the true heroes. By inference, the rest of the population who opposed the Bill were villains.

On Saba Saba Day last Sunday, thousands of Gen Z youth gathered at Uhuru Park to memorialise their comrades mowed down by the regime’s police. To those at the memorial, it was clear who the true heroes were.

Hopefully, Mr Ruto will recognise that Kenya cannot be ruled the way previous regimes have and, for once, jump to the right side of history.

The Kanu and neo-Kanu regimes that have ruled this country since independence are characterised by wanton plunder, mismanagement, tribalism, criminal negligence, filthy opulence, use of police to repress dissent, and gross abuse of office.

Mwai Kibaki’s regime was minimally successful in reversing these traits. Uhuru Kenyatta, in his last three years in office, tried to inspire a sense of urgency in his sleepy Cabinet, setting targets and closely monitoring progress, but time ran out on him.

The Ruto-Gachagua regime has only further exposed the decay underneath. Mr Ruto has announced measures to address the demands of the protesters.

What is needed, however, are not reforms of the broken system. What is needed is a complete break with the past. For this, Ruto will have to take measures that are counter-intuitive to his nature and worldview.

Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator