Having made no secret of his desire to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2022, Deputy President William Ruto has reportedly made an appointment that could prove vital in his bid to ascend to the country's highest office.
According to sources cited by the Sunday Nation on February 23, Ruto elevated his long-time legal adviser Korir Sing'oei to lead his strategy team for the 2022 election, tasking the lawyer with assembling a team of advisers to provide guidance on the bid.
The move was reportedly informed by multiple scandals in the public domain being linked to the deputy President and his office, the most recent being the Ksh39 billion arms saga that saw former Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa arrested on February 13.
Unknown to many, Sing'oei is an accomplished lawyer and a constant presence in the deputy President's inner circle, with his new role expected to bring a steadying hand to Ruto's planned 2022 bid which remains the subject of constant national debate.
A year after Uhuru won the Presidential race with Ruto as his running mate in 2013, Sing'oei was appointed Legal Adviser and Head of Policy in the Office of the Deputy President.
He boasts an impressive list of law-related credentials and was a senior partner at Sing'oei, Murkomen and Sigei (SMS) Advocates at the time of his appointment as Ruto's legal adviser.
Sing'oei has held several senior positions at various organizations and is a former Litigation Director at Katiba Institute.
He also served as a Rule of Law Specialist at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a founding director at the Centre for Minority Rights Development (CEMIRIDE), a pan-African non-profit organization.
Sing'oei further served as research fellow at the Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis and at the Centre for Justice and International Law in Washington D.C.
An advocate of the High Court, Sing'oei studied law at the University of Nairobi and graduated in 1998.
He went on to study Masters of Laws in global public policy and international law and economics at the University of Pretoria, South Africa and the University of Minnesota in the United States respectively.
In his latest role, Sing'oei will be expected to drive Ruto's overall campaign strategy ahead of the polls in 2022.
Ruto has in recent weeks criticized the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) regional forums, training his guns on Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga whom he accuses of orchestrating 'divisive' meetings.
"If the reggae is what we are seeing, the ethnicity that is being preached in BBI rallies and the ethnic profiling of communities, the hate and the campaign (pitting) one community against another. If that is the reggae they are talking about, then, my friend, reggae will stop," Ruto stated at Full Gospel Church in Gatunduri, Embu County on Sunday, February 23.
He was making reference to the phrase ' Nobody can stop reggae' adopted by Raila at BBI rallies held in various counties.
