President William Ruto has excited a rather cheeky section of the internet after he hit the streets in a shirt that raised a couple eyebrows and, well, chuckles from keen Kenyans.
Ruto, lately a burgeoning fashionista, stepped out wearing a beige shirt which sported a rather curious pattern – the universally accepted symbol of marijuana.
While launching the Lamu County Commissioner’s Office in Mokowe, Ruto was photographed greeting the Governor Issah Timamy alongside other government officials while wearing the attention-grabbing shirt.
The shirt, as has many others of the type which Ruto has donned since assuming the Presidency, would have gone largely unnoticed were it not for the ‘ganja’ symbolism which stood out like a sore thumb.
Oblivious to the curiosity the shirt would attract, the President went about his business, opening offices, commissioning the rehabilitation of the Tana Delta Irrigation Project, even issuing cheques to the local fishing community at Mokowe.
Thereafter, the President’s social media team shared the photos on Twitter – and the little comments started trickling in.
“Legalize It” quickly became the most common phrase being used by most of the people in the comment section, with many even attaching rapper Snoop Dogg’s GIF as if to buttress the point.
Snoop Dogg, for the uninitiated, is somewhat a global symbol of marijuana.
Other Twitter users, like @andbuddie even got a little sarcastic, tweeting, “Hiyo shati yako ya Aloe Vera ni mzuri. ama ni sisal? Top job!”
Other users, like @robi_chacha, said, “The prints on the shirt could be hinting at something? No? Okay!”
Another user @Afrikankobra simply said, and poignantly so, “When wajackoyah is your stylist!”
The marijuana green leaf, with serrated edges and seven leaflets fanned out like a hand, with its fingers open reaching toward the sky has, of late, entered the realm of iconography that goes well beyond marijuana culture and become one of the most easily-recognizable symbols in pop culture.
