By Kenya Today Reporter
“There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things we now know that we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know†– Donald Rumsfed, US Diplomat.
NAIROBI – As Deputy President William Ruto begins a full week home after the long boarding at the Hague, during which Kenyans were treated to the spectacle of intermittent live proceedings and private sessions, the gods of 2017 politics were awoken when the deputy president’s defence attorney, David Hooper, begun cross-examining witness 268:
Mr Hooper: I understand that on the night of the election on December 30th, 2007, some people broke into the tallying centre. Did you come to hear about that?Â
Witness: No.
Mr Hooper: For the ordinary Kenyan seated at home, would you agree that there would be sufficient evidence that the elections had been stolen
 Witness: Yes
 Mr Hopper: The European Union, the USA, the United Kingdom and Kenyan observers were dissatisfied with the way the elections had been conducted. Would that be fair to say?
Witness: Seemingly.
Hooper, unlike his cantankerous colleague, Karim Khan, appears to  many as a thoughtful, mature and highly critical lawyer. He is what Ahmednasir Abdullahi (the Grand Mullah) recently told the fading judiciary chief registrar, madam Gladys Shollei, to look for if she hoped to avoid Langata women prison –  a good lawyer.
The Kenyan case against deputy president William Ruto has all along been believed to have been orchestrated by Kibaki’s handlers, especially a team which comprised then Justice minister Martha Karua, mandarins in the ethnicised NSIS and the former powerful Mt Kenya Mafia in the office of the President at Harambee house. One of these shadowy behind-the-scenes dealers was recently unmasked- Nancy Gitau.
Gitau, for her ethnic correctness and other ‘unknown reasons’ was recycled by Uhuru when he took over. She is the current chief political advisor to Uhuru based at statehouse. Among the officers under her is the Machiavellian political scientist Mutahi Ngunyi, appointed recently, and a state joy-rider from Cherengany hills called Joshua Kutuny.
Uncharacteristically, Ruto listed Martha Karua and Gitau as among those who procured witnesses to testify against him. That week went by. Last week, Ruto aimed his guns at Mwai Kibaki, specifically revisiting the disputed 2007 elections with questions which make every kikuyu supra-nationalist: Â from the chaps who manage the hundreds of state corporations and banks down to the poor kikuyu student at the university who proclaimed the other day, that, Â ‘Uhuru is always right’, tinge with anxiety.
It was the first time, in along time, that Ruto singled out Kibaki and the heavy infiltration of kikuyus in state bureaucracy as what resulted in the bungled 2007 elections and the violent aftermath.
Despite all the 2 years of projecting Raila Odinga as the engineer of Ruto’s, and Uhuru’s Hague tribulations, the substance of the Hague presentations by Cooper, and all the witnesses who have testified so far at the ICC, none seems to connect Raila to the violence on one hand and Raila to Ruto’s indictment at the ICC. In fact, even the witnesses who have since realised the ICC is a ‘kangaroo court’ have never mentioned the CORD leader as part of the cartel which ‘hired’ them, and sustained them in their numerous hideouts.
This, according to Rumsfed, are the ‘known knowns’ of the ICC. It is what we (pro-Odinga loyalists) knew then and still know today: We (read Raila Odinga) did not fix Ruto.
Because Ruto has now decided to take on Kibaki, a god-like figure among those from central Kenya; and, assuming his defence team will continue with that line of legal presentation, he (Ruto) should FORGET the Mt. Kenya vote.
It is instructive to note that to date, Martha Karua, despite all her ‘claims’ at democracy, and ‘unflinching’ support for the rule of law, she has never blamed Kibaki for ethnicity or institutional hegemony by the Mt. Kenya. Even as she noisily left the government, Karua remained a staunch supporter of the status quo that she and others helped Kibaki build.
Ruto is taking on Mt. Kenya at a time when he is in ‘their government’. Already, that part of the world has not learnt anything from the past social mishaps of tribalism. Otherwise, Uhuru would not be appointing one Kikuyu after another in so quick a succession. What this means is that the 2017 elections will not be issue-based. That election will again see the ‘ethnic card’ being played openly.
Ruto’s new defence only points at one end: a fallout! The question is, when? The even bigger question is; if he loses the ‘reciprocal vote’ of the Mt. Kenya region, which other voting bloc beyond the Kalenjin will ensure the son of Kamagut rises to the house on the hill? For politicians, elections are never too far away.