Michuki and his walking stick

When it came to behaving like an elder, the Environment minister John Njoroge Michuki perhaps aped the Igbo elders most.

The Igbo are a prominent community in Nigeria, with sons such as legendary writer Chinua Achebe.

Igbo elders distinguish themselves from other elders in Nigeria for carrying their own seats whenever they go for a meeting.

Unknown to many Kenyans outside the Kangema political scene, Mr Michuki also always carried his own seat.

While Igbo elders used young boys to carry their seats, Mr Michuki carried his own seat in form of his walking stick.

Those keen on the walking stick will confirm it is conspicuously broad at the handle.

It can be easily unstrapped to make a comfortable three-legged seat from two flaps that are attached to it.

The flaps are made of leather and are strong enough to hold a man’s weight. The rod is metallic and light and is well decorated.

It also has a leather wallet beneath the flaps where he would put some money.

His walking stick’s story has everything to do with his bitter rivalry with his longstanding sworn political nemesis Joseph Kamotho, the former Mathioya MP.

The constituency was a theatre of political supremacy battles between Mr Michuki and Mr Kamotho, both trying to outdo each other since the former ventured into politics in 1979.

Michuki lost to Mr Kamotho. According to Mwangi Gacheru, an elder from Rwathia location and a long-time ally of the late minister, Mr Michuki adopted the mobile seat following frustrations by Mr Kamotho in the late 1980s.

“As the incumbent, Mr Kamotho would host public rallies where he always made sure that Mr Michuki would miss a seat at the main dais,” recollects Mr Gacheru.

One such event was a public function at Iyego village in 1989, during which Mr Michuki was denied a seat, but surprised guests when he unstrapped his walking stick and sat on it.
‘‘Kamotho’s team was laughed at,” says Mr Gacheru, now approaching 80. Michuki always said he had apparently not known his mobile seat would come in handy in the then Kangema hotbed of Iyego.

In October 2004, 15 years later, Mr Michuki would revisit the issue at Iyego Secondary school during a prize giving day conducted by internal Security minister Prof George Saitoti, then the Education minister.

Mr Joseph Kamau Muturi, then Iyego Secondary School principal says: “Mr Michuki revisited the issue by saying the last time he was at Iyego, he was denied a seat but used his own walking stick.”

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