1. William Ruto previously served in three cabinet portfolios as the Minister for Home Affairs, the Minister of Agriculture and as Minister for Higher Education.
56 Facts About William Ruto
1. 2.
William Ruto was the Minister for Home Affairs in the Daniel arap Moi administration from August to December 2002.
3.
William Ruto first contested for the presidency during the 2007 election, but lost to Raila Odinga on the ODM party primaries; together with Musalia Mudavadi, who finished second, he then supported the candidature of Odinga.
4.
William Ruto again ran for the presidency on the 2013 election, but withdrew his candidature in favour of Uhuru Kenyatta.
5.
William Ruto was later nominated to run for the deputy presidency in the 2013 election under the United Republican Party, becoming the running mate of Uhuru Kenyatta from The National Alliance.
6.
William Ruto was re-elected to the deputy presidency under the Jubilee Party in the 2017 Kenyan general election.
7.
William Ruto successfully ran for the presidency in the 2022 election, this time under the United Democratic Alliance.
8.
William Ruto then proceeded to Wareng Secondary School, still in Uasin Gishu County, and later Kapsabet High School in Nandi County, where he obtained his Ordinary Level and Advanced Level education respectively.
9.
William Ruto then enrolled at the University of Nairobi to pursue Botany and Zoology, graduating in 1990 with a BSc.
10.
William Ruto went on to complete an MSc in Plant Ecology, from the University of Nairobi.
11.
William Ruto authored several papers, including one titled Plant Species Diversity and Composition of Two Wetlands in the Nairobi National Park, Kenya.
12.
William Ruto served as the Chairman of the University of Nairobi's choir.
13.
William Ruto began his political career when he became the treasurer of the YK'92 campaign group that was lobbying for the re-election of President Moi in 1992, from which he learned the basics of Kenyan politics.
14.
William Ruto is believed to have accumulated some wealth in this period.
15.
William Ruto ran for a parliamentary seat in the 1997 general election.
16.
William Ruto surprisingly beat the incumbent, Reuben Chesire, Moi's preferred candidate, as well as the Uasin Gishu KANU branch chairman and assistant minister.
17.
William Ruto later gained favour with Moi and was appointed KANU Director of Elections.
18.
William Ruto was elected KANU Secretary General in 2005, with Uhuru Kenyatta elected as chairman.
19.
William Ruto was part of its top brass, dubbed the Pentagon.
20.
William Ruto solidified his voter base in the Rift Valley Province.
21.
In January 2006, William Ruto declared publicly that he would vie for the presidency in the next general election.
22.
William Ruto's statement was condemned by some of his KANU colleagues, including former president Moi.
23.
William Ruto sought the nomination of the Orange Democratic Movement as its presidential candidate, but on 1 September 2007, he placed third with 368 votes.
24.
William Ruto became the Eldoret North's Member of Parliament from 2008 to 4 March 2013.
25.
On 21 April 2010, William Ruto was transferred from the Agriculture Ministry and posted to the Higher Education Ministry, swapping posts with Sally Kosgei.
26.
On 24 August 2011, William Ruto was relieved of his ministerial duties but remained a member of parliament.
27.
William Ruto joined with Uhuru Kenyatta to form the Jubilee alliance for the 2013 presidential election.
28.
On 6 October 2014, William Ruto was appointed acting president of Kenya by the then President Uhuru Kenyatta following his summons to appear before the ICC.
29.
William Ruto served in the role between 6 and 9 October 2014 while President Kenyatta was away at The Hague.
30.
In December 2020 William Ruto announced his alliance with the newly formed United Democratic Alliance party.
31.
William Ruto was the only presidential candidate to attend the second part of the 2022 presidential debate.
32.
On 15 August 2022, six days after the general election held on 9 August, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chair Wafula Chebukati announced that William Ruto had won the presidential election, defeating candidate Raila Odinga of the Azimio La Umoja party.
33.
Two days later, on 21 September 2022, President William Ruto made his debut address as head of state to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
34.
In November 2022 William Ruto's government launched the Hustler Fund, a loan program to grant immediate loans to Kenyan citizens.
35.
In 2023 William Ruto proposed a large-scale privatisation of public enterprises, noting that it is not economically viable to keep pumping government resources into sustaining those corporations.
36.
William Ruto proposed several tax rises because more than half of its annual tax revenues are spent to service debt.
37.
William Ruto has been involved in a land grabbing saga involving his mysterious acquisition of Weston Hotel land, pitted against public counteraccusations with several state corporations in Kenya, all surrounding the original owner of the land.
38.
In January 2019, it emerged that according to another state agency, the National Lands Commission, William Ruto owed and needed to pay the people of Kenya for the land 0.773 acres opposite Wilson Airport upon which the Weston Hotel was built.
39.
In February 2019, William Ruto publicly admitted the Weston Hotel land had been acquired illegally by the original owners who sold him the land, and that he had no knowledge of the matter.
40.
Later in the same month, another legislator, Ngunjiri Wambugu, demanded all other cases in Kenya involving stolen property be thrown out as long as suspects were willing to compensate for it, in an effort to complain about the preferential treatment William Ruto was receiving for his involvement in the state's stolen property.
41.
In 2004, William Ruto was charged with defrauding another state corporation, Kenya Pipeline Company, of huge amounts of money through dubious land deals.
42.
William Ruto was acquitted in 2011 but in 2020, as his relationship with President Uhuru Kenyatta seemed to falter amid the President's push for an anti-corruption war, the police re-opened investigations in the case.
43.
In February 2014, William Ruto appealed the court order to pay the 5 million shilling fine.
44.
William Ruto has been widely and repeatedly linked to the assassination of Jacob Juma by several media, activists, politicians, opposition figures in Kenya, including Jacob Juma himself.
45.
In December 2015, Jacob Juma, in his tweets, claimed William Ruto was obsessed with killing him.
46.
Later in the month, William Ruto threatened to sue Jirongo for linking him to the assassination.
47.
William Ruto became a fierce government critic after he felt short-changed out of the mining license that eventually caused his company to lose money.
48.
An investigating officer claimed that the arrested personnel from William Ruto's office claimed that another personnel in William Ruto's office called Rono had credible information that Activist Mwangi could be killed in a stage-managed road accident.
49.
The arrested personnel from William Ruto's office was later sent for mental check-up after he further claimed that he was coached to lie about his claims of Jacob Juma's murder by Mwangi.
50.
In February 2017, it was reported that Mwangi claimed William Ruto wanted him dead like he killed Jacob Juma.
51.
William Ruto was accused of planning and organizing crimes against supporters of President Kibaki's Party of National Unity.
52.
William Ruto was charged with three counts of crimes against humanity, one for murder, one for the forcible transfer of population, and one for persecution.
53.
William Ruto told the US government that the Kiambaa church fire on 1 January 2008 after the 2007 general election was accidental.
54.
On 28 July 2017, William Ruto's home was targeted by at least one attacker armed with a machete, and the police officer on duty guarding the residence was injured.
55.
William Ruto is an evangelical Christian and a member of the Africa Inland Church.
56.
William Ruto owns a chicken farm in his home village of Sugoi, which was originally inspired by his stint as a chicken hawker on the Nairobi-Eldoret-Malaba highway.