If Kenya has been in the international spotlight for some time now, a good deal of credit, it must be admitted, goes to its president William Ruto.
While in the past the African country has always been in the hands of lobbies that descended directly from the fathers of independence, if not directly from their families, with the risk of tribalism always alive, today Nairobi can be said to be the standard-bearer of a democratic system that has few equals on the African continent: premier elected without term extensions, devolution, semi-independent judiciary, freedom of the press on the Western model (if I have more money I'll sue you) and much less power to the special police.
This is certainly not thanks to Ruto alone, but to a slow transformation that has however seen the current president behind the scenes, since the first Kibaki government, twenty-one years ago, with his roles first as a minister, then as 'longa manus' of the opposition, and as vice-president of Uhuru Kenyatta before his election.

Being a democracy does not only bring with it positive aspects: it also means being part of complex financial systems, which for a developing country means flirting with public debt and international loans, with big blocs, banking institutions and multinational corporations.
This is nothing new, there have been so many governments and so many nations with social and economic unevenness that have had development, but also moments of suffering, such as Brazil, South Africa and India (which not surprisingly have joined the BRICS).
After being received, historically enough, at the White House last month, 16 years after the last African leader and two decades after Kibaki himself, as far as Kenya is concerned, Ruto has risen in the NATO and G7 circles. It is also for this reason, as well as for the 'work in progress' of the celebrated Mattei Plan for Africa, of which Kenya is one of the leading countries, that the Kenyan head of state was invited by Giorgia Meloni, president on duty, to the meeting in Puglia.

The group photo shows him next to his new friend Joe Biden, while the one that has toured the continent and the world sees him chatting amiably in a 'tete a tete' with Pope Bergoglio.
More: Ruto was the first to be received by the Pontiff. While the G7 leaders offered him the stage for a speech that linked the call for global reforms to alleviate the debts of African countries to the climate emergency.
As "spokesperson" for the African Union, the Kenyan president did not, however, limit himself to 'homework' and, given that Africa is considered as important if not crucial for the future of the economy as it is now, he called for it not to be forgotten that in addition to the two overt wars, there are at least 16 wars or guerrilla wars raging across the continent, from the western Sahel to the Horn of Africa, from the Lake Chad basin to the Great Lakes region.
"Africa's many longstanding and long-forgotten wars continue unabated, causing unimaginable devastation on a daily basis," he told the G7, citing the ongoing conflict in Sudan as an example, describing it as a "senseless war" that causes death, destruction and despair.
After Bottura's lunches in the Borgo Egnazia metaverse, Ruto flew to the Peace Summit in Switzerland. After so much glory and consideration, a sign that he is certainly one of the most modern and well-prepared rulers of the third African millennium, he is now awaiting the domestic quarrels, with the approval of the new financial bill in parliament and the possible wrangling with the judiciary over the legitimacy of the introduction of certain taxes and with the opposition over the ventilated return to the streets for possible renewed protests. Albeit African-style, that's democracy, darling.