Robert Mbui urges Kenyans to heed warnings from senior politicians about Ruto’s character
Kathiani Member of Parliament Robert Mbui has urged Kenyans to pay attention to warnings from senior politicians regarding President William Ruto’s leadership, asserting that those who have worked closely with him have a far clearer understanding of his true character than the public might realise.
According to Mbui, these insiders, who have witnessed Ruto’s methods firsthand, are best positioned to provide an honest account of his leadership, especially given the growing dissatisfaction with his approach to governance.
Speaking during an interview with a local TV station on Monday, April 7, 2025, Mbui pointed to the recent remarks made by former Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi, who left Ruto’s government citing concerns about his leadership, asserting that these concerns were valid because Muturi had been the president’s closest ally.
“It is wrong to suggest that Muturi made these remarks because of the different benefits he was receiving. I don’t believe that the roles of Cabinet Secretary and Attorney General offer different benefits. In fact, nothing has changed in his political life in terms of his employment within the Kenya Kwanza administration since 2022. What he has witnessed are the many issues Kenyans have been grappling with under Ruto’s leadership,” Mbui said.
According to the legislator, Muturi had seen so much and had gathered sufficient intelligence while working closely with the president and was not wrong when he described his former boss, President William Ruto, as an unfit president.
He cited how Muturi’s son had been abducted and later released, adding that Ruto’s regime had done so much to harm Muturi, which was why he had been so vocal in exposing the president’s flaws.
“Considering his own son was abducted and later released after his intervention, there are many things that are obvious, and they are clearly annoying him,” Mbui said.
Further, Mbui labelled Ruto a slick politician who is able to sweet-talk people into anything, no matter how problematic it is, and insisted that he was using the same gimmicks to deceive Kenyans.
He pointed out that those who are not close to him and do not understand him from a first-hand perspective often fall for his sweet words, insisting that this was the strategy Ruto had used when seeking election in 2022.
However, Mbui noted that some of the country’s most senior politicians, like Uhuru Kenyatta and even Justin Muturi, who had the opportunity to be in Ruto’s inner circle, had, on many occasions, warned people to beware that he was not a good person and advised people to listen to them.
“When you talk about this issue, I think the president is a very sly politician. Before the election, many people believed in him. To those who weren’t close to him, he sounded very convincing. He could even sell ice cream to an Eskimo with his beautiful language. But the reality is that those who are close to him tend to tell us a different story. I remember former President Uhuru Kenyatta telling Kenyans that Ruto was not the right man to be president. Now, I hear the same thing coming from Muturi, who worked with him closely when he was speaker and as CS. These are people who have been in the same room with him and can offer the truth. We should listen to them,” Mbui said.
Defending his point, Mbui noted that what was currently happening, however, was that Ruto’s outer circle of politicians, like Jane Kagiri, had become the ones giving information that the president is a good man, and he stressed that at no point should someone who has not rubbed shoulders with the president as part of his innermost circle be advising the public about his character.
“People like Kagiri can’t be the ones telling us what kind of person Ruto is. It’s better to hear it from someone like Muturi, who was in Cabinet meetings with him. There’s a proverb that says, ‘The one who wears the shoes knows where it pinches.’ The Cabinet Secretaries know exactly where it pinches. Ruto’s desire to control everything is a serious problem,” Mbui remarked.
Mbui also recalled a particular claim by Justin Muturi that Ruto used to take control over Cabinet meetings and labelled him a control freak who wants to monopolise government for his own benefit.
He insisted that Cabinet Secretaries in Ruto’s regime were not able to make decisions on their own, as Ruto keeps meddling with their affairs, and said that this was another reason why the country was stagnating and unable to make progress.
According to him, Ruto should take inspiration from leaders like Kalonzo Musyoka or Mwai Kibaki, who used to give their Cabinet Secretaries the freedom to lead, and said that this was one of the few ways the government could redeem itself and deliver tangible developments to the people.
“At one time, the president himself locked out Cabinet Secretaries who arrived late for a meeting and then proceeded to tell Kenyans that he knew more about the ministries than some of his own Cabinet Secretaries. This suggests that he is a control freak – he wants to make all the decisions. You hear former Cabinet Secretaries and Attorneys General saying that he used to take over the proceedings of Cabinet meetings. So, if a cabinet secretary was giving a presentation and the president had an interest in that topic, he would simply take over. This is a clear sign of bad control, and it’s a major issue we are facing today. A good leader, like Kibaki and Kalonzo, allowed others to lead. They gave their ministers a chance to lead, and that’s when Kenya started healing. So, I want to agree with JB Muturi on this matter,” Mbui concluded.
