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After joining forces with William Ruto to win the 2013 and 2017 elections, President Uhuru Kenyatta now seems determined to ensure that his deputy does not ascend to the presidency in 2022. The breakdown of their alliance has all the hallmarks of betrayal, brinkmanship, deception, fraud and subterfuge.
By Dauti Kahura
Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies. โ Voltaire
The above quote by Voltaire is one that Deputy President William Ruto could well be spending lots of time brooding over, especially in these times of coronavirus. Since official recognition of the pandemicโs arrival in Kenya over just three months ago, Rutoโs political battles โ not with his enemies, but with people he had counted as friends โ have intensified. The battles that are being fought in the Jubilee Party, the party of President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, are internal and among erstwhile friends.
Coming barely 30 months after the forceful UhuRuto duo won a controversial fresh presidential election on October 26, 2017, the two political brothers looked set to finish their second term the way they started the first: as a formidable team of like-minded captains, with the lead captain passing the baton to his comrade once his term expires. But that today is a dream: the waters have been poisoned and the former buddies are no longer swimming in the same direction, leave alone swimming in the same waters. The breakdown of the alliance has all the hallmarks of betrayal, brinkmanship, deception, fraud and subterfuge.
Jubilee Party mandarins did not see the break-up coming; if they did, they all pretended they were not aware of the imploding scenario. The ruling party is now a house of two diametrically opposed camps led by their respective protagonists: President Uhuru Kenyatta, who coalesces around the Kieleweke (it shall soon be evident) camp and William Ruto, who is spearheading the Tanga Tanga (roaming) team.
โWe can no longer pretend that the current war being waged against William Ruto is not from within and therefore not from friends, or people he had presumed were his political friends,โ said a Ruto confidante I spoke to. โTo think otherwise now would, like the proverbial ostrich, be burying our heads in the sand. It is better to be fought by your enemies, who you have fought several times before and therefore you already know to deal with them, rather than be fought by friends, who have turned the tables against you, all the while posing as your compatriots.โ
โUhuru is employing political terrorism against his number two and to be honest, it is something we had not anticipated,โ said Rutoโs friend of many years. โYes, it has taken us by surprise, the intensity and all, but we must stay and fight back, even as we devise a strategy to stem the political bloodbath. It is all about the politics of succession in 2022 and there is no hiding the fact that Ruto obviously wants the seat. If you have been a deputy president for seven years, what else would you want as a politician in that position? It is also true that once Uhuru and Ruto were sworn in for the second and final term, we started popularising our candidate immediately โ it was the natural thing to do โ hitting the ground running. This was misconstrued to be a campaign, but even if it were, we werenโt doing anything outside of the constitution”
Rutoโs loyal friend said that the popularisation strategy had a context: โPrior to the presidential election in December 2002, we all were in KANU โ Uhuru, Ruto and me. We would go to [President] Moi and tell him, โMzee tell us who will be our candidate so that we can start preparing the grounds early.โ And he countered by saying: โNyinyi vijana wacheni mbio, siku ikifika nitawambia. Mimi nimekuwa kwa siasa miaka mingiโฆnataka mwendelee kuwa wafuasi kamili wa Kanu.โ (You young men, why are you in a hurry? When the day comes, Iโll let you know. Iโve been in politics for many years, I know what Iโm doing. For now I want you to be steadfast in your support for Kanu.) By the time he was proposing Uhuru as the partyโs candidate, it was already too late and there wasnโt enough time to campaign for our candidate”
The Ruto ally, who also counts President Uhuru as a first-name-basis friend, believes Uhuru lost the election in 2002 to Mwai Kibaki and the opposition, because Moi took too long to name the partyโs flag bearer. โWe could have won that election but for Moiโs delaying tactics, which backfired and we lived to regret that bad decision. Eighteen years later, with lessons learned, weโre not about to repeat the same mistake. You cannot win a presidential election if you start campaigning six months to the election date. That is what Uhuru is doing with our candidate and in Jubilee, and we wonโt let him do that”
The coronavirus appeared just in time to help President Uhuru fight his political battles, reasoned the DPโs bosom buddy. โHe is now using the pandemic to wage war against his deputy. The semi-lock-down and the curfew are strictly not about COVID-19, but about clamping down on Rutoโs forces in the party and in government.โ The pandemic, he observed, has acted like godsend: It has given Uhuru space to mount a sustained onslaught on Ruto, but it has also helped the DP to ward off (at least for the time being), the โnobody-can-stop-the-reggaeโ force, which was also threatening to overwhelm him.
โUhuru is maximising on the COVID-19 pandemic as much as possible because he knows his antagonist, the DP, cannot organise and mobilise for his counter-attack, which he is good at. The people have been locked down, they are restricted, they cannot move, they are scared and are caught up with survival. President Uhuru can therefore wreak havoc in Rutoโs camp with as little distraction as possible,โ he added.
The coronavirus appeared just in time to help President Uhuru fight his political battles, reasoned the DPโs bosom buddy. โHe is now using the pandemic to wage war against his deputy. The semi-lockdown and the curfew are strictly not about COVID-19, but about clamping down on Rutoโs forces in the party and in government.โ
Uhuru is not alone; since the onset of COVID-19, some world leaders have been using the pandemic as an excuse to amass more presidential powers, extend their presidential terms indefinitely, resort to dictatorial tendencies, and quash opponents.
But unlike the last election, the president does not have the unflinching support of his own people. โUhuruโs biggest problem is that the Kikuyus have turned their back on him,โ said a friend of Uhuru who also counts Ruto as his friend. โHe thought he owned them and he could do whatever he wanted with them. He also thought they would always go back to him and do his bidding. Now, they seem dead set in ignoring him completely and the fact of the matter is, as a political leader, you can do little if you cannot galvanise the support of your people. You cannot claim legitimacy, you can only impose yourself on them and that is always counter-productive.โ
Because of this, said the Jubilee Party mandarin, President Uhuruโs current headache is how to de-Rutoise central Kenya and the larger Mt Kenya region. โHeโs been trying to tell the Kikuyus that Ruto has been disloyal to him, that he wants to grab their power, that heโs not fit to ascend to the presidential seat because heโs corrupt and power hungry. But they have refused to listen to him. With each passing day, heโs getting furious with the Kikuyusโ recalcitrant stand against him. Now, he has turned to appointing Kikuyus in prominent positions, including the recent reshuffles in Parliament to appease his Kikuyu base.โ
The duoโs friend told me that President Uhuruโs allegations about his deputyโs insubordination was a red herring. โWhat disloyalty is Uhuru is talking about? When he was busy drinking, we held fort by taking care of government business, even as we covered his social vices. Now he has the temerity to talk about disloyalty. Weโre not afraid of him. The Jubilee Party/Kanu coalition agreement is illegal as per our Jubilee Party constitution and it was cobbled up to stop Ruto from vying for the presidencyโ.
All the presidentโs men
To fight Ruto, President Uhuru Kenyatta formed an advisory team that meets at State House. Part of the team comprises David Murathe, Kinuthia Mbugua, Mutahi Ngunyi and Nancy Gitau.
Murathe has for the longest time been President Uhuruโs sidekick. His father, William Gatuhi Murathe, was one of the wealthiest Kikuyus, courtesy of Uhuruโs father and the countryโs first president, Jomo Kenyatta, During Jomoโs time, the senior Murathe was the sole distributor of wines and spirits countrywide.
When David Murathe was routed out as the MP for Gatanga constituency by Peter Kenneth in 2002, his fortunes dwindled and he was even declared bankrupt at one stage. From that time, he has not left Uhuruโs side. The Tanga Tanga team describes Murathe as โUhuruโs attack dogโ. They believe that when Uhuru wants to communicate an important message, he uses Murathe. And theyโve learned to decipher his messages. Murathe is the man who has been put in charge of the advisory teamโs budget.
On 6 January 2019, Murathe suddenly resigned from his post as the Jubilee Partyโs vice chairman, citing conflict of interest. He said he wanted to fight Ruto and stop him from being the Jubilee Partyโs sole candidate for the 2022 presidential election. On 2 March 2020, Murathe recollected his thoughts on his supposed resignation and claimed he had not really resigned because his resignation had not been accepted by President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is the chairman of the party.
Kinuthia Mbugua is the State House Comptroller; he keeps President Uhuruโs diary. He served as Nakuru County governor for one term. Eagerly looking to serve for a second term, he nonetheless lost the Jubilee Party nomination to Lee Kinyanjui. He was furious, and even looked to run as an independent, but was persuaded by Uhuru to join the presidential campaign team, with a promise of a bountiful reward once the campaign was over.
The Tanga Tanga team describes Murathe as โUhuruโs attack dogโ. They believe that when Uhuru wants to communicate an important message, he uses Murathe. And theyโve learned to decipher his messages.
Mbugua, a career civil servant, hails from Nyandarua. When he was the commandant of the Administration Police (AP), he employed many youth from Nyandarua and the adjoining areas. He equipped the force with personnel and machinery and soon there were murmurs from the regular police service, which felt that the AP was being favoured and was becoming extra powerful. After the 2007/2008 post-election violence, President Mwai Kibaki and his cohorts did not trust the regular police. Mbuguaโs not-so-loudly spoken brief was to reorganise a force that had always played second fiddle to the boys in blue.
Mbugua to date believes William Ruto rigged him out of a nomination when he was left to man the Jubilee Party headquarters at Pangani during the chaotic and hectic nominations. He carries the grudge like an ace up his sleeve.
Mutahi Ngunyi is a private citizen who has immersed himself in state (house) politics and has distinguished himself as a maverick, a person who can swing like a pendulum and still remain standing, without falling. In the lead-up to the 2017 election, he made Raila Odinga, the opposition coalition leader of the National Super Alliance (NASA), his punching bag, terming him a โpunctured politicianโ, an epithet that his detractors used to describe Railaโs father Jaramogi Oginga Odinga in the 1970s.
After Uhuru and Ruto romped back to State House, Mutahi quickly (perhaps too quickly) identified with Rutoโs camp and decreed that Ruto will be the next president come 2022. A crafty mythmaker, he even came up with the Hustler vs Dynasty narrative to define the rivalry between Ruto and the sons of prominent Kenyan leaders, including Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and Gideon Moi. He wildly claimed in a May 2019 tweet that the only person who could liberate Kikuyus was Ruto. (Mutahi has since deleted all his tweets that were singing Rutoโs praises.) Then, beginning this year, Mutahi flipped, disavowed his hustler narrative and claimed that Uhuru Kenyatta was ordained to rule Kenya.
โMutahi Ngunyi is a gun for hire,โ said a Ruto aide. โFor nearly two years he worked for us. Heโs a mercenary, heโs a fugitive of justice.โ When I contacted Mutahi and asked him if what was being said about him was true, he responded: โTell them it is true, whatever that means. Tell them they can also hire me!โ
The aide claimed that Mutahi was presented with the National Youth Service (NYS) file by the National Intelligence Service and was asked to cooperateโฆor else.
The NYS file he was referring to contains details of a huge scam that was perpetrated between 2014 and 2016 when Anne Waiguru Kamotho, the current governor of Kirinyaga County, was the powerful Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary. Mutahi was one of her advisers on the youth programme that was being implemented by NYS. The scam involved the misappropriation of billions of shillings of taxpayersโ money in which Mutahi was heavily implicated. At one time, he even purported to clear his name by claiming to have returned Sh12 million to the government coffers. Appearing before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee on September 20, 2016, Mutahi said he had rewired the money back to the Central Bank of Kenya. He said that the money had been โwronglyโ credited to his company, The Consulting House. He further stated that he believed the money had come from an organisation that he had consulted for, not the Devolution Ministry.
Mutahi is now operating from State House and The Chancery building on Valley Road in Nairobi. The Chancery is owned by the Kenyatta family. Part of his brief is to spin favourable Kieleweke group narratives while conjuring up propaganda and disinformation on his former employer, William Ruto.
Nancy Gitau has been the resident State House adviser from the time of Mwai Kibaki. Before becoming a state aficionado, she worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). While at USAID in the 1990s, she was involved in the democracy and governance sector, which was being heavily funded by the United States and other donors. The last big project that she oversaw was a partnership between Kenyaโs Parliament and the State University of New York (SUNY, Albany)โs Centre for International Development (CID), which Sam Mwale and Fred Matiangรญ managed. Both Mwale and Matiangรญ would later become civil servant bureaucrats, serving as Permanent Secretary and Cabinet Secretary, respectively.
Mutahi is now operating from State House and The Chancery building on Valley Road. The Chancery is owned by the Kenyatta family. Part of his brief is to spin favourable Kieleweke group narratives while conjuring up propaganda and disinformation on his former employer, William Ruto.
Gitau was very well-known within the civil society and the NGO sector and interacted with many of them. โGitau was one of the architects of a report implicating Ruto in the post-election violence and so there is no love lost between her and Ruto,โ said Rutoโs aide. The deputy president is still upset about Gitau singling him out. During the days when Ruto and Uhuru were facing charges related to the post-election violence of 2007/2008 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, one of Rutoโs team members said to me: โRuto never forgives and never forgets a wrong done to him.โ
ย Expunging Rutoโs men
The Gitau-led advisory team ostensibly meets every Sunday morning at State House and during weekdays at La Mada Hotel located in the New Muthaiga residential area in Nairobi. La Mada is the hotel that Ruto claimed in 2019 where a plot to assassinate him was being hatched by people known to President Uhuru.
One of the teamโs main jobs is the expunging of Rutoโs men in the Senate, with Kithure Kindiki, the Senator of Tharaka Nithi County, being the latest casualty. Until 22 May 2020, Kindiki was the Senateโs Deputy Speaker. The first two casualties were Kipchumba Murkomen and Susan Kihika, the former Majority Leader and Chief Whip, respectively. Murkomenโs job was given to Samuel Poghisio, a politician from West Pokot, while Kihikaโs went to Irungu Kangรกta, the Senator of Murangรก County.
โThe two were removed because the president and his men didnโt have the majority in the Jubilee Partyโs National Executive Committee (NEC),โ said a โrenegadeโ senator, who accused President Uhuru of โusing strong-arm tactics to coerce senators to vote according to his whimsโ.
During the days when Ruto and Uhuru were facing charges related to the post-election violence of 2007/2008 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, one of Rutoโs team members said to me: โRuto never forgives and never forgets a wrong done to him.โ
The senator said that the Speaker of the Senate, Ken Lusaka, was allegedly approached and reminded of the โsmall matterโ of the wheelbarrows when he was the Governor of Bungoma County.
When Lusaka was the governor of Bungoma County between 2013 and 2017, the county bought 10 wheelbarrows worth Sh1.09 million (approximately $10,000 or $1,000 per wheelbarrow) โ the most expensive wheelbarrows ever sold in Kenya, where an ordinary wheelbarrow goes for around Sh5,000 ($50). When he was asked by the Parliamentary Accounts Committee what was so special about the wheelbarrows, he claimed that they were made from โstainless, non-carcinogenic materialโ. Some of the county officials were jailed for the scam.
Everybody knows it was illegal for the speaker to acquiesce to President Uhuruโs demand that the Senate Parliament Group meet at State House, said the senator. โThe reason why nominated senators are being intimidated and threatened is simply because Uhuru doesnโt have enough senators on his side to fight his deputy.โ
Senators were allegedly paid Sh2 million to vote to remove Murkomen and Kihika. โOn the day the senators were summoned to State House, President Uhuru didnโt have enough senators to push his motion,โ said the senator. โThe Jubilee Party had only 11 senators, Kanu, three and one independently-elected senator, Charles Kibiru. If you count Raphael Tuju and President Uhuru they made 17 votes. Tuju is the secretary general of Jubilee Party. So, they were way short of the required majority of 20 votes.โ The senator claimed that the president had to send helicopters to pick senators from their far-flung regions.
โUhuru can send choppers to senators who are supposed to be in lockdown and in quarantine, but he will not send planes to rescue and send food to flood victims. Thatโs how much he cares for the unity of this nation,โ complained the senator.
It is just a matter of time before these elite squabbles are replicated on the ground. On 20 May 2020, two charged groups in Kikuyu town faced each other: one group supported President Uhuru Kenyatta and the other supported Deputy President Ruto along with the area MP Kimani Ichungโwa. So far Kimani has been an unswerving supporter of Ruto. They yelled and shouted at each other and exchanged invectives. It was a prelude to Rutoโs visit to the constituency on that day.
โUhuru can send choppers to senators who are supposed to be in lockdown and in quarantine, but he will not send planes to rescue and send food to flood victims. Thatโs how much he cares for the unity of this nation,โ complained the senator.
It is hard to tell whether the two groups had been paid by their masters to grandstand. But that is neither here nor there. The Jubilee Party honchos have indicated that Rutoโs presence in the Mt Kenya region cannot just be wished away โ hence the Kieleweke groupโs project to defang Ruto.
I asked a Ruto confidante why his boss had gone quiet. Was the heat becoming unbearable? โThis is not the time to speak. We actually advised him not to open his mouth. Thereโs a time that he will speak, but not now.โ
The confidante also reminded me of another saying: The man who speaks little makes mistakes, but what about the man who talks a lot? He makes big mistakes.
Courtesy of “The Elephant”
