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As I write this, the Nairobi Hospital, a 70-year-old institution serving over 290,000 patients annually, is at the centre of what critics, including his own former Attorney General, are calling a state-orchestrated hostile takeover (Capital FM, 2026). The former AG has alleged that the current Kenyan president, acting through his Chief of Staff, sustained threats and coercion against the hospital board, demanding the removal of three directors to make way for state nominees, with warnings of arrest and money laundering charges (Standard Media, 2026). Board members were raided at their homes. Documents were allegedly hidden in secret compartments and retrieved from the hospital’s incinerator after attempts to destroy evidence (Tuko.co.ke, 2026). And yet Kasongo stands at a podium calling himself the hospital’s saviour. Ask yourself: when a sitting president deploys the DCI, KRA, Asset Recovery Agency, National Intelligence Service, and Financial Reporting Centre against a private hospital’s board, is that governance, or acquisition by another name? What breaks my heart is watching every constitutional mechanism designed to check the executive be rendered utterly toothless. When the very instruments a constitution enshrines to protect its people fail this spectacularly, you cannot help but bleed for this nation.

But this is no ordinary institutional failure. It is a failure built on the foundation of a man whose hands were never clean. Kasongo faced charges of four crimes against humanity, namely murder, deportation, forcible transfer of populations, and persecution, for organised ethnic violence that killed at least 1,100 people and displaced over 650,000 during Kenya’s 2007 to 2008 post-election crisis (ICC, 2011; Human Rights Watch, 2008). The case collapsed not because he was innocent, but because witnesses were bribed, threatened, and systematically silenced, in what the court itself identified as deliberate and organised interference (FIDH and KHRC, 2016). That is not justice. That is impunity wearing a suit. What does it say about a nation when a man credibly accused of orchestrating mass ethnic violence can ascend to its highest office?

all copyrights for this image belong to BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30879938 

This same man built his empire on land that did not belong to him. The KCAA publicly declared that the land on which his hotel stands, a nearly two-acre parcel on Lang’ata Road opposite Wilson Airport, was public land allocated through irregular processes (KCAA, 2015). And when the hotel expanded to swallow an acre of Lang’ata Road Primary School’s playground, it was schoolchildren who had to take to the streets to fight back. They were met with police teargas (Otieno, 2015). Let that image settle. A man facing charges of crimes against humanity, tear-gassing children fighting for their right to play. How do you reconcile that with the man who stands at every pulpit asking God to bless Kenya?

Now he sits in State House, and the evidence has been brutal in its clarity. His government lost KSh650 million through corruption in its very first year, with 109 reported cases resulting in only four convictions (Public Service Commission, 2023). Kenya’s ranking on Transparency International’s corruption index dropped from 123 to 126 out of 180 countries (Transparency International, 2024). Ministry of Health officials allegedly embezzled over a million dollars from a donor-funded health campaign, leaving Kenya facing Global Fund sanctions (Nation Africa, 2023). One thousand metric tonnes of condemned sugar simply vanished from a government warehouse in Thika (NTV Kenya, 2023). Not misplaced. Vanished. A KSh9 billion irregularity was unearthed at the government’s own eCitizen platform, with a further KSh2.5 billion illegally collected by officials (Auditor General, 2024).

Then came the Adani scandal. A nearly KSh258 billion, thirty-year lease of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport that bypassed competitive bidding entirely was only cancelled in November 2024 after United States indictments for fraud and bribery were filed against the firm (Al Jazeera, 2024). The contracts were not cancelled because the Kenyan government discovered wrongdoing. They were cancelled because an American court forced the issue. Would they ever have been cancelled otherwise?

corruption charges against his allies, Henry Rotich implicated in the KSh 63 billion Arror and Kimwarer dams scandal and Wycliffe Oparanya over county fraud, were selectively dropped. His former rival Raila Odinga branded him Kenya’s high priest of corruption. His former Attorney General Justin Muturi, a man who served in his own coalition, publicly described him as irredeemably corrupt. His former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua accused him of profiting from regional instability in Sudan and the DRC, with alleged links to illicit gold deals involving Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. These are not enemies speaking. These are people who sat in the room with him.

Parliament has been reduced to an appendage of State House. The judiciary has been battered by open contempt. The ODPP has been converted into a blunt instrument for persecuting dissenters while shielding the president’s allies. At least 246 people have been killed by police since this regime took office, with accountability remaining elusive. And all of this, while he wraps himself in scripture. A man who invokes God’s name at every rally and every sunrise prayer, even as ordinary Kenyans suffocate under runaway inflation and predatory taxation. The masses fast while he feasts. The constitution bends while he stands.

While ordinary Kenyans faced prosecution for protesting, corruption charges against the president’s allies, including a former Cabinet Secretary implicated in a KSh63 billion dams scandal and another over county fraud, were selectively dropped by the very ODPP designed to deliver impartial justice. The late RAO aka Baba branded him Kenya’s high priest of corruption. His own former Attorney General publicly described him as irredeemably corrupt, alleging he was pressured to approve dubious multibillion shilling deals (The Africa Report, 2025). His former Deputy President, the man he governed with, accused him of profiting from regional instability in Sudan and the DRC through alleged links to illicit gold deals (The Africa Report, 2025). These are not enemies speaking. These are people who sat in the room with him.

Parliament has been reduced to an appendage of State House. The judiciary battered by open contempt. The ODPP weaponised against dissenters while shielding allies. At least 246 people have been killed by police since this regime took office (KHRC, 2025). And all of this, while Kasongo wraps himself in scripture, invoking God’s name at every rally and every sunrise prayer, even as ordinary Kenyans suffocate under runaway inflation and predatory taxation. The masses fast while he feasts. The constitution bends while he stands. And the soul of this nation bleeds.

So when you hear Kenyans, including an entire generation of young people, chanting “one term” every time Kasongo opens his mouth, do not call it disrespect. Call it memory. Call it pattern recognition. Call it a people who have done the maths and are refusing to be fooled twice. Democracy literally means rule of the people, not equality of the people. The egalitarian society was never part of the original bargain. But a people who remember, organise, and refuse to be silenced? That is where the power has always lived.

Let’s not forget, a people who remember, fight for their human rights and constitution rule of law? That is where the power has always lived.

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Sources:

• ICC (2011). The Prosecutor v. William Samoei Ruto and Joshua Arap Sang. [https://www.icc-cpi.int/kenya/rutosang](https://www.icc-cpi.int/kenya/rutosang)
• Human Rights Watch (2008). Ballots to Bullets: Organised Political Violence and Kenya’s Crisis of Governance. [https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/03/17/ballots-bullets/organized-political-violence-and-kenyas-crisis-governance](https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/03/17/ballots-bullets/organized-political-violence-and-kenyas-crisis-governance)
• FIDH and KHRC (2016). Termination of Ruto and Sang Case: Witness Tampering Means Impunity Prevails. [https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/kenya/termination-of-ruto-and-sang-case-at-the-icc-witness-tampering-means](https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/kenya/termination-of-ruto-and-sang-case-at-the-icc-witness-tampering-means)
• KCAA and Standard Media (2015). KCAA: Weston Colluded with Firms to Grab Land. [https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/nairobi/article/2001372996/kcaa-weston-colluded-with-firms-to-grab-land](https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/nairobi/article/2001372996/kcaa-weston-colluded-with-firms-to-grab-land)
• Kahawatungu (2015). Ruto’s Weston Hotel Grabs Lang’ata School’s Playground. [https://kahawatungu.com/rutos-weston-hotel-grabs-langata-schools-playground-kidero-watches/](https://kahawatungu.com/rutos-weston-hotel-grabs-langata-schools-playground-kidero-watches/)
• Al Jazeera (2024). Kenya Cancels More Than $2.5bn in Deals with Adani After US Indictment. [https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/11/21/kenya-cancels-more-than-2-5bn-in-deals-with-adani-after-us-indictment](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/11/21/kenya-cancels-more-than-2-5bn-in-deals-with-adani-after-us-indictment)
• The Africa Report (2025). Ruto Corruption Allegations and Former Allies Speak Out. [https://www.theafricareport.com](https://www.theafricareport.com)
• Kenya Human Rights Commission, KHRC (2025). Police Killings and Accountability Reports. [https://www.khrc.or.ke](https://www.khrc.or.ke)
• Capital FM (2026). Muturi Accuses Ruto of Trying to Take Over Nairobi Hospital. [https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2026/03/muturi-accuses-ruto-of-trying-to-take-over-nairobi-hospital/](https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2026/03/muturi-accuses-ruto-of-trying-to-take-over-nairobi-hospital/)
• Standard Media (2026). Muturi Alleges State Plot to Take Over Nairobi Hospital. [https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/nairobi/article/2001542837/muturi-alleges-state-plot-to-take-over-nairobi-hospital](https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/nairobi/article/2001542837/muturi-alleges-state-plot-to-take-over-nairobi-hospital)
• -Tuko.co.ke (2026). William Ruto Addresses Claims He Wants to Own Nairobi Hospital. [https://www.tuko.co.ke/politics/620166-william-ruto-address-claims-nairobi-hospital-ll-defend/](https://www.tuko.co.ke/politics/620166-william-ruto-address-claims-nairobi-hospital-ll-defend/)