2027: Ruto to buy “Tutam” using Kenyans wallet

At Ngong Road adjacent to Jamhuri Park, a structural behemoth has risen to dwarf everything in its vicinity.

Day by day, this colossus grows in magnificence and allure, capturing the hearts and minds of even the most stubborn critics of President William Ruto’s administration.

For once, there is national unanimity that the upcoming Raila Odinga International Stadium — originally conceived as the Talanta Sports City — is a total game-changer for the country.

Renamed after modern Kenya’s political titan, the stadium further cements its place in the hearts of his vast legion of supporters.

Across Kenya, a veritable army of construction sites is sprouting up as the old reluctantly gives way to the new.

In the chaotic cocktail that passes for our urban planning, affordable housing towers are shooting up like concrete weeds, quite literally robbing neighbouring schools, health centres and public facilities of their sunlight.

The trucks are turning, earth-movers are shaking the ground, and dust is blowing across the nation. In all these neighbourhoods, there is palpable, self-evident proof that this administration is actually doing something.

Towards the western part of the country, a concrete, asphalt snake is taking shape in the form of the Rironi–Mau Summit Highway.

As one of the country’s most vital transport arteries, this road will bring Nairobi and Nakuru closer, unlocking the massive, hitherto stifled potential of Western Kenya.

Meanwhile, at the edge of the affluent Karen suburb near Galleria Mall, a major convention complex is being spruced up.

It replaces the log-propped, ancient structure that appealed to our village innocence whenever we visited the city many years ago.

By the look of things, all these mega-projects appear perfectly primed for completion and launch a few months to the election.

By the time the official campaign period is declared, these projects will be glistening in their brand-new launch sheen.

As the opposition mobilises support through dusty public rallies, President Ruto will likely be dropping into these sites like a messiah, launching them with state-funded pomp, colour, and live television broadcasts.

The opposition will be forced to sell abstract hope and empty promises, while the incumbent sells tangible, concrete projects that voters can see and touch.

Barring an immediate, miraculous tightening of the laws governing the use of state resources for partisan campaigning, Ruto is positioned to wipe the floor with the opposition courtesy of these taxpayer-funded monuments.

Yet, the opposition will have absolutely no one to blame but themselves. They have spent years condoning the most lethargic, asleep-at-the-wheel Parliament in Kenya’s modern history.

Through their collective negligence, the country’s electoral laws have been systemically weakened rather than strengthened.

This brings us to the profound ethical crisis at the heart of our democracy: the weaponisation of public resources for private political gain.

From MCA’s, MPs, governors to the President, there is a grand, deeply institutionalised delusion in Kenya that when our leaders cut a ribbon on a road or a stadium, they are personally gifting it to the nation out of the benevolence of their political heart.

Allowing the incumbents to use the official machinery of the state as a backdrop for a re-election campaign turns a democratic election into a farce.

It creates an un-level playing field where the opposing candidates bring a knife to a gunfight, while the incumbent brings an entire state-funded artillery division.

When public resources are deployed for political campaigns, state projects cease to be driven by public utility and begin to be dictated by the electoral calendar.

We stop building what the people need, and start building what looks best in a campaign brochure. The spectre of beautiful gates for schools with crumbling classrooms is a perfect example.

The tragedy of Kenya is not that our leaders exploit these massive loopholes; it is that our parliament actively guards the loopholes.

By failing to legislate strict, unyielding boundaries between state functions and campaign rallies, our lawmakers have legalised a form of political corruption that happens in broad daylight.

If we continue to tolerate this, we are effectively telling incumbents that they can buy their next term using our own wallets.

Until we legally sever the umbilical cord between state development and partisan campaigns, our elections will continue to remain farcical.  

Musau, an Advocate of the High Court, is a Senior Project Manager with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. The views expressed here are his own.