Ex-CS-turned-Ruto adviser calls it quits... but Kenyans care less!

Moses Kuria has resigned as President William Ruto’s senior economic adviser.

When he quit on July 8, Bwana Kuria wants that information treated as breaking news. A Kenyan on the social media platform X, Martin Munene, made the observation and chose to share it with the masses.

In a viral skit, Munene, who parodies Kuria, waylays Kenyans outside a shopping complex and breaks this news to them.

“I have resigned. It is me, Moses Kuria, and I have resigned,” Munene, wearing a broad smile, says. “You need to hear this.”

The two shoppers he talks to are uninterested in the unsolicited information, much as Kenyans have treated Kuria’s resignation. 

The former Waziri for Trade, and later Public Service, has not received the attention he thought walking out on President William Ruto would have attracted. There was no headline to announce his resignation. Neither did radio talk shows pause their gossip to discuss Kuria.

And so he has erected billboards on social media to announce his quitting. 

“This evening I have met my boss and my friend, President William Ruto. The President has graciously accepted my decision to resign from government,” Kuria said in a first post, which should have been enough.

Concerned that online traffic wasn’t flowing as thick and as fast as he had wished, he would drop his resignation letter, captioning the image “Nation above self.”

In it he would say that he was “committed to ensuring a seamless transition”, which sounded more like a cry for help by a man who will not move on from the fact that he resigned, first as Cabinet Secretary, seeing that he retains the initials CS on his X profile, and as one of Ruto’s countless advisers.

Then came another nation ‑ above-self post, which highlighted Kuria’s achievements in the 30 months ‑ look who’s counting - he has served under Ruto. It shouldn’t surprise Kuria that few Kenyans care that he left a job no one thought was a real job. No one, besides the 50-something-year-old, was fazed when he was fired from his more consequential role as Waziri!

There are too many advisers around Ruto. That very role has recently seemed like one designed for people Ruto had no use for, but whom the President would want kept busy. Many have also pointed out that advisers earn a salary for doing nothing, given that Ruto needs no advice.

When one door closes, another opens up. Until recently, Kuria didn’t believe in the saying, now a bit old hat. When a gate was closed on him years back, Kuria would climb it and beg to be let in.

“Nifungulie tu,” he would cry. “Ni mimi Mheshimiwa Moses Kuria (Munene was apt in capturing Kuria’s namedropping tendencies). Si umefungulia wengine.”

He has since sampled optimism and found out he likes the taste. Now Kuria has his gaze firmly on the Jubilee Party’s secretary-general position, which, occasionally, ping-pongs between Jeremiah Kioni and Kanini Kega, a lawmaker in the East African Assembly.

That Kuria craves a return to Jubilee speaks more to his fondness for holding on to the past. He booted the former ruling party when Ruto fought with former President Uhuru Kenyatta to form his party, a briefcase outfit he called Chama cha Kazi.

Kuria wound it up when it landed him a job as a Waziri, after it initially failed to secure him the Kiambu governorship. Records from the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties have, however, shown that the party still exists, and recently received a few million for the four elected MCAs it boasts.

Returning to Jubilee may not be as easy as Kuria thinks. Opposition politicians are already treating him with the suspicion that greets political moles. They also question his value, seeing as Kuria got fewer votes than former Prime Minister Raila Odinga in his native Kiambu.

With resignation comes the chance for reflection. Out of a job, Kuria has lots of time for that. Perhaps he should think about why Kenyans don’t care much about anything he does. The media, too, has lost interest.

He may find out it is because of how he has treated others in the past. He has walked out of media interviews whenever the seat has been too hot, and hurled expletives at journalists for daring to ask him questions.

What might he have done to offend Kenyans? Significant sections of the population have felt hurt by some of his remarks, considered incitement, which have landed him in trouble with the toothless National Cohesion and Integration Commission.

Once again, Moses Kuria resigned. We get it, now move on.