Speaker now reigns in the Assembly where a bullet almost took away his life

On September 23, 2014, Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana and his close aides came under brazen gun attack that shocked the country, at the gates of the county assembly grounds.

The midday shooting drama left his Chief of Staff Douglas Mbilu, his bodyguard William Kinoti, county assembly Sergeant at Arms Brian Mutua, former councillor Francis Musyoka and Pastor Festus Nyamai nursing gunshot wounds.

It was a brush with death for the five as a bullet grazed Mr Mbilu’s head while Mr Mutua was shot in the stomach. Mr Kinoti was shot in the thigh while Mr Musyoka and Pastor Nyamai were hit on their legs. The bodyguards attached to the then Assembly Speaker Stephen Ngelu opened fire during a confrontation at the assembly.

The gun attack that grabbed headlines was the climax of the political standoff that disrupted operations in Makueni, pushing the county to the edge of dissolution after residents petitioned President Uhuru Kenyatta to set up a commission of inquiry.

On the third anniversary of the dreadful incident, last week, Governor Kibwana and Mr Mbilu must have been reflecting with gratitude on the torturous political journey and how things have gone full circle.

Last week, Mr Mbilu, the young man who almost died in the attack played host to the governor as he opened the first session of the county assembly, having been elected as the Speaker in an unthinkable reversal of roles.

On the Tuesday he was elected Speaker, Mr Mbilu turned up dressed in the same blood soaked grey suit he wore on that fateful Tuesday three years ago, perhaps unaware that his dressing would trigger some depressing memories.

VOTED BY 35/47

Mr Mbilu was voted for by 35 out of the 47 Ward Representatives, surpassing the two-thirds vote threshold in the first round, and was then declared the Speaker and sworn in by the Clerk, Mr Edward Libendi. 

Prof Kibwana, Deputy Governor Adelina Mwau and four local MPs were on hand to congratulate the new Speaker when they addressed the press at the exact spot where Mr Mbilu was shot and wounded three years ago.

Away from the gun drama, his election was significant in many ways, chief among them being among the youngest county assembly Speakers in the country at only 35 years.

Prior to his election, Mr Mbilu was the county minister for Water and Environment, where he spearheaded the passing of a law that incorporates global warming into its development planning.

Makueni scored a first when it passed the County Climate Change Fund (CCCF) Regulations – a law that sets aside one per cent of its entire Sh5 billion annual development budget towards climate change adaptation.

After the enactment of the law in early 2016, Makueni became the first county in Kenya to get Sh50 million for resilience building programmes from United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID).

During the May 2016 United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) conference held at the Unep headquarters in Gigiri, Nairobi, Mr Mbilu was applauded for setting the pace for other counties to follow in climate change mitigation efforts.

IMPLEMENTATION

The climate change law was significant because it moved Makueni closer to becoming a sub-national implementing entity capable of accessing and using climate finance including the Green Climate Fund (GCF) which is set to rise to $100 billion (Sh10 trillion) by 2020.

A session at the UNEA conference where delegates from 172 countries discussed ways of financing climate change was told that the CCCF regulation passed by the Makueni County Assembly was the first of its kind in Kenya and Africa.

DFID country director Ian Mills said the Sh50 million is part of venture capital provided for counties to demonstrate what can be achieved in using such funds in a better way by mainstreaming climate change in planning and implementation of projects.

In an interview with Lifestyle, Mr Mbilu said the Makueni legal framework has been emulated by Isiolo, Kitui, Wajir and Garissa county governments.

“This law allows county governments to access funds from their own budgets and from diverse sources including global, national and private donors,” he said.

EARN ACCOLADES

While still at the Water docket, Mr Mbilu also introduced radical water governance regulations that saw Makueni earn accolades at the third Devolution Conference in Meru.

Anyone putting up a residential or commercial building in Makueni’s urban centres must provide an underground tank for harvesting roof water and the building plans must get approvals by county’s water officials besides the physical planning department.

The policy makes it mandatory for all developers in the arid county to provide sufficient underground water storage facilities for harvesting rain water from the roofs of their houses.

The agenda to mainstream water harvesting, both at household and community level through subsidies and simple initiatives, was narrated to governors and delegates at the devolution conference in Meru.

It was celebrated as a shining example worth emulating by other counties, with former Council of Governors’ chairman Peter Munya, who was then the Meru governor, saying it was the best so far.Governor Munya said Makueni had gone beyond the traditional way of implementing community water projects and embarked on a bold campaign at household levels.

“The way Makueni is addressing water scarcity is another remarkable success story of how devolution is changing people’s lives,” Mr Munya said in his keynote address at the Devolution conference.

The policy established a county empowerment fund to provide cheap credit to rural households to help them acquire plastic tanks where ordinary farmers access loans at a low interest rate of 3 per cent from the Sh50 million fund to invest in water harvesting for domestic and agricultural use.

Mr Mbilu said the integrated water programme seeks to get every resident involved in finding solutions, rather than relying on meager public resources.

“Making water available to every home not only supports agriculture but also improve people’s sanitation and, therefore, frees the health budget to other development programmes because in effect the disease burden will be reduced,” he explained.

Born in January 1982, the father of two who married in 2014 while working as Governor Kibwana’s Chief of Staff, went studied at Matiliku Boys Secondary School up to 2000.

He spent three years working at his father’s village Posho mill and doing menial jobs until September 2003 when he was admitted at Kenya Medical Training College in Nairobi to study a diploma course in clinical orthopaedics.

Instead of looking for a job to develop his career as a medical officer, Mr Mbilu who had emerged as the best student in his class joined the constitutional referendum Orange (No) campaigns in Ukambani spearheaded by Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka, then a Cabinet minister under President Kibaki in 2005.

This time, at only 24, he was a harsh critic of Prof Kibwana, his MP, who was supporting the Banana (Yes) campaigns.

After the plebiscite, he was elected Makueni constituency youth leader alongside lawyer Makau Ndumbuthi who is now a High Court judge, as his secretary.

Mr Musyoka tapped him during his 2007 presidential bid where he was attached to ODM Kenya party secretariat and was deeply involved in the campaign.

MOBILISATION SKILLS

“I was actually recruited by the late Senator Mutula Kilonzo who was then the party secretary general and I guess they were impressed by my mobilisation skills in political campaigns,” he narrated.

His first attraction for the Speaker’s job which grew into a desire came in January 2008 when he was picked by former Kitui rural MP Charles Nyamai as his personal assistant, a job that required him to work at Parliament buildings.

“Mr Nyamai had quit the corporate world and wanted a young innovative person to manage his office after winning the elections. He called me with an offer for a job having been referred to me by his colleagues” he said.

He accepted the job offer but told the new MP that he would serve as his aide for only eight months because he was enrolled to study political science at the University of Nairobi and the course was starting in August.

“For those eight months, I used to deliver my daily assignments in time for the parliamentary sessions where I would sit at the public gallery for hours to watch as the then National Assembly Speaker Kenneth Marende presided over House debates,” he said.

Mr Mbilu says he admired Mr Marende’s firmness, neutrality and ability to moderate stormy House sessions while making judicious rulings that were acceptable to both the government and opposition sides.

Mr Nyamai told Lifestyle that Mr Mbilu was an intelligent and hard working PA, who adjusted quickly to pressures of his new job.

In August 2008, he resigned from Mr Nyamai’s office to join University of Nairobi but went with a burning desire to pursue his ambition of one day becoming Speaker.

The following year while still at school, the ministry of Medical Services gave him his first job as clinician and posted him to Mbagathi Hospital where he worked until 2012, a year after his graduation at UoN, to join Prof Kibwana’s gubernatorial campaign.

His mobilisation skills were evident when all Makueni leaders settled on him during the 2010 referendum campaign as the chief agent for the “Yes” side, and he had to take a 45 day leave from Mbagathi.

In September 2012, he resigned from Mbagathi Hospital to manage Prof Kibwana’s campaign but the new governor was surprised when he told him that he wanted to contest the Speaker’s position.

“The governor could not understand why a 30-year-old would be so passionate about being the county assembly speaker but I convinced him to allow me try my luck,” he said.

Prof Kibwana appointed him his Chief of Staff and was instrumental in the governor’s first term in office.

After the 2014 shooting incident, Mr Mbilu was to face the Assembly members after his appointment as County Water minister and he easily sailed through the vetting process.

Dismissing concerns that his independence is easily compromised considering his ties with Prof Kibwana, the Speaker promised to uphold the rule of law and exercise public participation to enhance good governance and inclusivity.

“We will have inclusivity in public participation in matters of the assembly and work together with the executive though the independence of the two shall be observed,” he noted.