The Marketing Impossible: Why the Government’s Propaganda Machine is Failing
NAIROBI, Kenya — A massive crisis of confidence is rocking the ruling alliance, and the blame game has officially reached the inner circle. Why the regime slashed Dennis Itumbi’s budget during a tense, closed-door strategy session exposes a harsh reality: no amount of digital spin can cover up economic hardship. The move highlights the absolute panic inside the administration as the failed State House gamble trying to sell high UDA taxes and SHA chaos to furious Kenyans completely falls flat on the ground.
In the modern political arena, public relations and narrative control are often treated as highly potent tools for maintaining power. The current administration understood this well, constructing a massive, well-funded digital communication strategy designed to shape public perception and manage national conversations. Yet, despite millions of shillings poured into narrative creation, the state's public relations machine has ground to a halt. This failure became glaringly obvious during a recent closed-door meeting of top regime insiders, where the decision was made to slash the current budget of chief digital strategist Dennis Itumbi due to poor, almost non-existent results.
The frustration among the regime's core elite is palpable. They are looking at a country where public discontent is at an all-time high, where tax revolts have shaken the foundations of governance, and where official statements are routinely met with widespread skepticism online and on the streets. Looking for a scapegoat, the inner circle chose to blame the individuals responsible for broadcasting the message. They concluded that the communication department was simply failing to sell the government's successes.
However, this diagnosis completely misunderstands the fundamental laws of communication and marketing. The failure of the state's narrative is not a failure of digital strategy, nor is it the fault of the media teams. The reality is far simpler: the administration is trying to sell a product that the public finds entirely unconsumable.
To use a basic business analogy, imagine a commercial enterprise that wakes up one morning and decides to double or triple the prices of all its core goods. Simultaneously, due to poor management and cost-cutting, the company drastically reduces the actual quality and reliability of those very same products. Customers who once relied on the brand suddenly find it expensive and broken. When sales inevitably plummet, the corporate executives call an urgent meeting and furiously reprimand the sales and marketing team for failing to hit their targets.
This is exactly what the state has done over the last few years. From the moment it took office, the regime began aggressively raising taxes on basic commodities, fuel, income, and small businesses. The tax hikes were relentless, introduced one after the other with little regard for the financial breathing room of ordinary families.
While taxes went up exponentially, the quality of public services dropped precipitously. The collapse of the NHIF and the chaotic introduction of the highly unpopular SHA healthcare portal left millions without predictable medical coverage. Public infrastructure languished, corruption scandals continued to make headlines, and state funds grew increasingly tight. The government was asking Kenyans to pay far more money for drastically inferior governance.
The disconnect between the leadership and the populace was perfectly captured in a telling interaction early in the regime's tenure. A group of worried legislators from the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) went directly to the State House to voice their anxieties. They warned the President that the party was becoming intensely unpopular on the ground, and that voters were furious about the crushing new tax burdens.
The President’s response was chillingly dismissive. He looked at the lawmakers and flatly stated, "This is not the time to be popular." The underlying assumption of this political calculus was clear: the regime believed it could spend the first few years of its term squeezing the population financially, extracting maximum revenue, and ignoring public pain. The planners assumed that as the next general election approached, they could simply pivot, deploy their massive communication apparatus, distribute resources, and make the public completely forget the years of economic hardship.
This gamble is failing spectacularly. The planners forgot that human suffering cannot be easily erased by a temporary public relations campaign. When a family loses a loved one because a hospital portal was blocked due to a government dispute over debts, or when a small business closes because of predatory tax audits, that pain hardens into permanent political resistance.
Slashing the communication budget and shifting funds away from strategists like Itumbi will do nothing to solve the regime's core problem. You cannot spin a collapsing health system into a success story. You cannot use clever hashtags to feed a family struggling with skyrocketing food costs. The public relations failure is merely a symptom of a much deeper policy failure. Until the administration realizes that good governance is the only effective form of public relations, no amount of budget reshuffling will save its collapsing narrative.
Is this goodnight and good riddance finally here for the Ruto regime and his cronies?
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