How do you think William Ruto managed to become Deputy President of Kenya?

Well, in my view, William Ruto managed to become the Deputy President of Kenya (the first Deputy President of Kenya) through two things: hard work and using his mind.

It doesn’t really matter if you are a fan of William Ruto or not – but if you have followed his affairs for any period of time, you would just have to concur that Ruto is a very hardworking individual. You start seeing Ruto’s hard work from his time in school: many people take it for granted, but for someone coming from a truly humble background, it takes a great deal of effort to make it to university. And you notice that even after having some considerable achievements, Ruto still took the trouble to pursue his masters and doctorate. If that is not a hardworking person, I don't know who is. Then you look at Ruto’s time after school – from his time with the YK92 outfit where, as he puts it he was just a ‘mtu wa mkono’ to running for parliament against Chesire in 97 to becoming a minister, then a member of the Orange pentagon in 2007 then to Deputy President in 2013… it takes a lot of hard, consistent work.

As for his mind, you just have to listen to any of the one-on-one unscripted interviews that Ruto has given to understand he is an individual of considerable intelligence. And that intelligence has surely played an important part in his rise – especially in the early years when he had to work his way out of the village to the university of Nairobi [where the late President Moi and other people seemed to have spotted the leadership potential in him]. As he likes putting it, ni ‘kujipanga’ but then, the ‘kujipanga’ is a function of intelligence: because unless one is highly intelligent, it becomes hard to ‘jipanga’ and make strategic moves in highly complex and ever-changing situations like Kenya’s politics.

So I think the lesson we can learn from Ruto’s rise to the Kenyan Deputy Presidency is this: anyone who has aspirations of succeeding in any field has to be ready to work hard and use his or her mind in a disciplined manner, consistently.