Prezzo Ruto toots own horn to reveal fresh delusions of grandeur
Peter Kimani
By
Peter Kimani
| Aug 08, 2025
I don’t recall seeing Prezzo Bill Ruto relaxed as he was this week, in that cream suit that allowed a hint of a grey stubble to accentuate his receding hairline, even as a glint flashed in his eyes to declare: “mimi najua kufanya mambo.”
That means “he knows how to do stuff,” and in the absence of any elaboration, “kufanya mambo” could mean just about anything. But since we’re not in the business of speculation, let’s stick to what we know so far.
First off, I am glad he has shaken off that tag about being Washington’s factotum, since that silly picture sitting at Joe Biden’s desk at the White House, smiling sheepishly. That’s when Washington declared Nairobi a major security ally, in a nonsensical formulation known as “Major Non-Nato Ally.”
Some folks saw that as a vote of confidence in the person of Prezzo Ruto, while in actual sense it meant he was being deployed as Washington’s KYM (kanda ya moko), commanded to run errands that no one was willing to discharge, like sending Kenyan troops to die in Haiti.
That was before Kenyan youths started dying like flies in police cells because they had shouted “Wantam,” an egregious crime that, I understand, has provoked the government to take extra measures to ensure only pliant crowds are allowed into local stadia during the on-going continental footie tourney known as African Nations Championship (CHAN).
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But that’s not my problem. If the government is keen on insider trading — same way our taxes are being used to purchase T-Bills that earn interest from the self-same kafment — let them find creative ways of filling our stadia with tickets bought using our taxes. The real winners are the youth watching the games for free.
Prezzo Ruto was in the stadium on Sunday, perhaps to personally suppress any chants of “Wantam,” in readiness for the horn tooting midweek, when he hailed his alleged youth for enabling him “to do stuff”.
He went further, now that he was in a good mood to claim, without any provocation, that he bests all the four past Prezzos over the last 60 years because “there has never been an opportunity for a person with the experience I have, with the education I have, with the knowledge I have…”
Well, that’s not exactly PhD-speak, but we’ll let it slide. He went on: “I have combined all, all the all (sic) my precedessors, you know: I have the courage of Jomo, I have the understanding of Moi, I have the education of Kibaki, and I have the plan we shared with Uhuru Kenyatta…”
Let’s not belabour how he purportedly “combined” his four predecessors, after all, he knows how to do stuff. After years of denial of ever having served as Prezzo UK’s deputy, he now acknowledged that he had worked under him for 10 years, five of which were spent campaigning, hoisted on the top of a vehicle that allowed a bird’s eye view of what he now claims was “the plan shared with Uhuru Kenyatta.”
The less said about Prezzo Ruto’s alleged superior education the better, especially since we’re yet to know how he deployed his Zoology to the management of the nation’s affairs. I’d have expected the nation’s marine life to improve exponentially due to his expertise in this field.
But I am inclined to agree with him that it takes enormous courage to do the sort of things he’s doing, which no doubt stem from his daring attitude since his formative years selling chickens and eggs in the streets of Eldoret.
I think that compares favourably with Jomo’s forays in Europe in 1929, or chanting anti-colonial slogans at London’s Hyde Park in the 1940s. If one charges that the proceeds from eggs and chicken sales went to Prezzo Ruto directly, Jomo could be accused of keeping many parcels of land for himself.