President Ruto Cheekily Embraces His ‘Zakayo’ Nickname

President Ruto today 26 May, 2023 took in his now famous nickname, Zakayo. The country’s Commander in Chief was labelled Zakayo by Kenyans who felt like he had introduced too much taxes described in the proposed Finance Bill 2023 which seeks to amend various laws pertaining to taxes and levies.

Zakayo is the swahili version of the biblical Zaccheaus who was the wealthy chief tax collector. Ruto’s comparison to Zakayo has also been done by the opposition who boldly use the name to refer to the President.

The President was in a meeting with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) staff at Times Tower after which a lady posed a question to him,requesting for an invitation to the State House for Tax Payers Day, which is celebrated every October. The president had just filled his returns prior to the meeting. This is what he told the lady;

“Since I am already called Zakayo in some areas, perhaps we could have a Tax Payers Day at State House and that is a good suggestion and we can all agree on how to collect taxes with integrity,”