Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has brushed off President William Ruto’s Mt Kenya tour, which appeared to pull massive crowds contrary to public expectation, claiming those who showed up were not die-hard supporters but simply idle onlookers drawn in by curiosity.
Speaking during a candid interview on the Iko Nini podcast on Sunday, April 6, 2025, Omtatah likened Ruto to a hyena brought to a livestock market—not because anyone intends to buy it, but because people gather to stare out of curiosity, only to end up buying cows and leaving the hyena behind.
According to him, whether or not the attendees were bribed to show up did not matter, because not a single citizen was genuinely interested in the president’s presence, and the turnout only reflected the boredom of jobless citizens looking to kill time.
“When Kenyans hear even the slightest commotion, they rush to see what’s happening—even if it’s a bomb that’s gone off—even if it ends with them being clobbered by police, and there’s a saying where I come from that says, ‘if you go to a cattle market and bring along a hyena and put it on display, everyone in the market will rush to see the hyena, but when it’s time to buy, they’ll buy cows and leave the hyena,’ so that Mt Kenya tour by Ruto was like a hyena at the market—people showed up to marvel at the beast but no one intended to take it home, so I don’t see the problem with people going to see a caged hyena, and even then, the turnout wasn’t all that, because whether they were paid or not, most people are just unemployed and looking for something to do.”
Furthermore, Omtatah argued that Ruto should not draw pride from drawing a crowd in Central Kenya—where he was expected to receive a frosty reception—insisting that the people there are simply the most idle and showed up purely to pass the time.
He said the crowd did not send any message about Ruto’s popularity and pointed out that locals in the region often spend their time drinking, so showing up to catch a glimpse of Ruto felt like an easy way to break the monotony.
“So Central is right here in Kiambu—just go through and you’ll see how many young people are just lounging with nothing to do; some of them spend their days drinking, so they figured, ‘Why not go see what a hyena looks like?’ So honestly, I don’t see anything major that happened there.”
Working with Ruto
Later on, Omtatah was asked to address a past moment where netizens trolled him after the abduction of cartoonist Kibet Bull, with some accusing him of colluding with the very government he regularly calls out to orchestrate the act.
The firebrand senator vehemently denied the claims, saying even Kibet Bull himself could publicly vouch that he played no part in the disappearance and affirmed that the truth is not something that can be buried.
On that issue, he insisted that Ruto’s camp went to great lengths in a desperate attempt to associate him with the abduction of the popular cartoonist and former influencer—but none of it stuck.
“I saw when people started saying I was working with the hyena, but they didn’t realise I had already cornered them, and once I submitted my affidavit, they backed down and said they were now investigating the matter, the case of Kibet Bull, and even Kibet Bull will tell you I wasn’t involved in any way—they tried so hard to pin it on me, but in the end, it amounted to nothing.”
He went on to tie it to another abduction involving a Kenyan named Bob Njagi, saying Njagi was taken just after leaving his house but insisted again that he had absolutely no role to play in that disappearance either.
“You know, there are some things you simply can’t do—Bob Njagi had just left my place when he was abducted, and when they started their whole independent candidate push, I guided them a lot, but later on things shifted to talks of abduction, and the truth is something that’s incredibly hard to cover up.”