Labor CS Geoffrey Ruku…Photo /courtesy
By Peter Marango Mwibanda
NAIROBI, Kenya — In a season of political realignment and survival politics, Labour Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku has emerged as the most dramatic symbol of a familiar Kenyan affliction: loyalty performed so loudly it borders on satire.
Once associated with the restive Mt. Kenya political class that openly questioned President William Ruto’s leadership, Ruku has since reinvented himself as the administration’s most enthusiastic defender.
His recent public appearances — praising the president at rallies, dismissing critics as enemies of progress and framing economic pain as patriotic sacrifice — read less like governance and more like a loyalty audition.
It is politics by self-immolation.
The timing is not accidental. The impeachment of former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua shattered Mt. Kenya’s uneasy alliance with State House. His replacement by Kithure Kindiki from Mt. Kenya East did not heal the rupture; it deepened it.
The mountain is now fragmented, suspicious and openly resentful, with leaders scrambling to secure relevance as 2026 approaches.
In this chaos, Ruku’s calculation is clear: when the house is on fire, stand closest to the man holding the matches.
But the performance has become a caricature. As Labour CS, Ruku presides over a workforce battered by unemployment, informality and collapsing purchasing power.
Young people cannot find jobs. Workers are squeezed by rising taxes and stagnant wages. These are not abstract problems. They are daily crises.
Yet instead of policy interventions, Kenyans are treated to political sermons.
History offers no comfort to such displays. From the post-Moi era to the fallout of the Jubilee government, Mt. Kenya politics is littered with figures who mistook proximity to power for permanence. They burned bridges to please the center, only to be discarded when the winds shifted.
Loud loyalty has never guaranteed survival.
The region now resembles a battlefield of competing ambitions. Old kingpins are weakened. New claimants are untested.
Daggers are drawn, smiles are rehearsed and betrayal is merely strategic positioning. As 2026 nears, ideology has collapsed into instinct.
Ruku’s transformation must therefore be read not as conviction, but as fear — fear of irrelevance in a mountain that no longer speaks with one voice and a presidency that tolerates loyalty but not hesitation.
The tragedy is that this political theater distracts from a deeper national crisis. Kenya is at its lowest economic ebb in years. Families are cutting meals.
Parents are questioning whether their children will have the opportunities they once enjoyed. Anxiety about the future has replaced faith in institutions.
And yet, those entrusted with leadership are busy clapping.
Blind faith has a poor track record in Kenyan politics. When regimes wobble, they rarely fall alone. Those who cheer the loudest are often the first to be consumed by the collapse they helped normalize.
Wood that sets itself on fire does not control the blaze.
As Kenya inches toward 2026, the question is no longer who supports the president the loudest, but who is still listening to the country.
For CS Ruku and others racing to outdo each other in devotion, history’s warning is unmistakable: power rewards obedience briefly — and punishes it ruthlessly when the music stops.
