The King is Naked—Ruto Roundtable Interview Boomerangs

One of the best known techniques for leaders to manage a crisis is coming out in the open and explaining the reasoning and process behind their actions.

President Dr William Samoei Ruto did precisely that on Sunday evening inviting some of Kenya’s best known faces in the media industry for a candid tet-a-tet. Whoever runs the PR show at the Presidency, no doubt, was banking on the president’s suavity and polished demeanour in managing interviews in the past.

It all turned out to be a nightmare though as Linus Kaikai, Joe Ageyo and Eric Lattif did not pull punches and asked the president point-blank to explain to the country how he feels when twenty-four lives of innocent Kenyans were lost before he rescinded the contentious Finance Bill 2024.

When the president said there were no abductions Kaikai asked him to sit along and watch a clip of the recording where former Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter was being abducted in Mafia-style in broad daylight by hooded police in Kileleshwa.

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When the president denied that he was an avid and perennial liar, similarly evidence was provided to him in clips showing him making one outrageous promise that was unfulfilled after another. Yes, it was a nightmare.

Now it has been confirmed that the president by his angry demeanour is not sincere when he seemingly offered an olive branch to the youth to appoint leaders to a committee or to come out and talk.

An agitated Ruto kept ranting about KES 2.1 billion of property lost during the week-long protests and not what he claimed to be 19 lives of Kenyans lost. The president went off tangent justifying why he either had to tax Kenyans more or borrow more.

“Otherwise tell me what other options do I have,” he asked the panellists, bewildered. The president even revealed that he called for military intervention because the protesters whom he repeatedly referred to as criminals had outrun important government institutions.

If this was a crisis management technique it boomeranged and only served to prove that the king is naked. 

Who will tell the king that, indeed, he is naked?

DalanewsKe 

Editorial Monday 1 July, 2024