Kenya is not all about doom and gloom. When the late President Mwai Kibaki still served in office, he capitalised on every opportunity he had to address any event attended by foreigners – whether on home soil or abroad – to ask them to visit the country and sample its tourist attractions.

Incumbent President William Ruto should follow suit and do more than Kibaki. Ruto should utilise the numerous trips he is making abroad to market Kenya there as a tourist destination. He should have his minister for Tourism and her top honchos around him when he travels.

Indeed, I was somewhat elated last Sunday to watch Ruto telling fellow visiting African Heads of States and other top dignitaries from the continent at the United Nations Office at Gigiri, Nairobi, during the African Union Mid-Term Co-ordination meeting, to spare some time while still in Kenya’s capital city to tour the Nairobi National Park watch the various wildlife in the animal reserve.

Similarly, I noted with appreciation early last month when Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua – in Kibaki style – while addressing an international water and marine-related gathering in Mombasa asked his audience to take their time off and sample Kenya’s various tourist attractions.

That is the way to go. Each one of us must market Kenya’s positives from all fronts. However, as they say, to who much is given much is also expected. President Ruto has a much bigger role in promoting Kenya as the best destination on all matters concerning the economy, business and investments as well as travel and hospitality.

Kenya is currently under the throes of a sagging economy with the citizenry almost being suffocated by the pangs and twangs of the high cost of living. It does not matter that political demonstrations and deaths resulting from a poorly-managed road transport system are with us for quite some time minus attention of the wise. The good side of Kenya must always be told at whatever circumstances for, that supersedes the seamy one.

But tourism and hospitality are not the only areas where the President and his Executive have to place their marketing skills and energy. Democracy and good governance are also a major challenge in Africa. Kenya has made some positive strides in the last three decades, though they are facing a major threat at the moment. No doubt, Kenya has registered tremendous growth on this front and therefore President Ruto has all the moral authority to impress upon his colleagues around the continent that all the development they aspire for their countries can only be implemented in a political atmosphere that embraces democracy.

But to start with, Ruto has to move fast and put to an end the on-going violence elicited by a lack of understanding between his government and the Opposition. Regardless of how one may want to look at it, the President is the Big Brother in the house and therefore the one with the biggest responsibility insofar as looking for a solution to the woes afflicting the country are concerned.

Within a very short time, Ruto has acquired a lot of admiration around the African continent owing to his stinging barbs aimed at the Bretton Words and generally, what economists have come to describe as, the Global North on matters surrounding the imbalances in international business and financial lending. However, Ruto has curiously avoided including human rights, democracy and good governance in his speeches, whether at global or continental fora. He studiously distanced himself from these areas of great concern in his speech. Yet he should have. But he must in future conversations with his peers.

—The writer is the Revise Editor, People Daily. E-mail: [email protected]