Over six trillion Kenyan shillings were stolen between 2013 and 2022. This staggering amount—public funds borrowed through loans—vanished without a trace, bypassing budgets, audits, or tangible development programs. No roads, no hospitals, no schools, no livelihoods were uplifted. That money cannot be traced through any formal documentation or government records because it was looted before it could touch the ground.
And now, ironically, some of the very individuals who orchestrated or enabled this grand theft are emerging as our “saviors.” Today, they are shouting louder than the rest of us, leading the Ruto Must Go movement and pouring millions into funding opposition presidential candidates.
Wanatusaidia. Yes, they are “helping” us. We are being mobilized, used, and perhaps manipulated by the same system we want to dismantle. And the worst part? Some of us are cheering them on, full of excitement, full of misplaced hope, all while our future is being bought again—this time with stolen money.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have said this time without number: we cannot defeat corruption in Kenya if our movements and candidates are financed by corruption itself. We are chasing our tails. We remove one corrupt leader only to replace them with another funded by the same tainted billions.
We must confront the culture of campaign financing in Kenya. It is the rotten foundation upon which corrupt leaders are built and sustained. If we do not change how we raise money, we cannot change who leads us. If we continue to rely on billionaires made rich through theft, then we must accept that our leadership will always be compromised—bought, sold, and beholden to their funders, not to the people.
It is time to rise differently.
Let us raise our own ten bobs, hundred bobs, and one thousand bobs. Let us crowdsource integrity. Let us build a new political culture where homegrown, community-backed leaders of conscience can rise to challenge the merry-go-round of the oligarchy. Let us stop being excited by the drama and instead focus on the deeper disease—a system where money, not merit, determines power.
Yes, Ruto is not the solution. But neither are the loudest voices calling for his ouster if they are financed by loot.
We must see the problem beyond Ruto. This is bigger than one man. This is a system-wide disease. And the cure begins with us.
Morara Kebaso is a political activist, social critic, and advocate for campaign finance reform in Kenya.
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