Elders defend Anne Waiguru, Jacob Kaimenyi and Michael Kamau

A section of the country’s Council of Elders has come out to defend Cabinet secretaries Anne Waiguru and Jacob Kaimenyi and their suspended colleague Michael Kamau, claiming they are victims of schemers seeking to hound them out of office.

Elders from Nakuru, Nairobi, Kajiado, Meru, Tharaka Nithi, Kiambu, Murang'a, Nyeri, Nyandarua, Kirinyaga, Embu and Laikipia on Sunday claimed the three officials have been targeted because they are transformative and keen on fighting cartels in their dockets.

“A quick analysis of the backgrounds of those targeted for lynching is invariably similar. They all oversee ministries that have in the past been ravaged by cartels of hardcore plunderers of public resources,” said the Secretary of the Embu and Mbeere Council of Elders Ben Machaki Kanyenji.

Their statement comes as pressure mounts for the dismissal of Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Waiguru and Education Cabinet Secretary Kaimenyi over alleged corruption in the National Youth Service and the Ministry of Education, respectively.

Mr Kamau was suspended from his position as the Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary over similar claims and was charged in court.

'INCITEMENT'

The elders also hit out at the Cord coalition and trade union leaders who they described as detractors meddling in government business with the aim of cause instability.

They singled out Cord principal Kalonzo Musyoka whom they accused of making “reckless and acidic statements” which they said amount to politics of incitement against the sitting government, following his remarks that the government was shielding its corrupt officers. He specifically mentioned Ms Waiguru.

In what they described as an emerging culture where “meddlers and guns for hire” are planted to disrupt delivery of services, the elders, largely drawn from the Mt Kenya region, cited trade unions which they claimed were being used to undermine the government.

“The theatrics and melodramatics of these relentless latter-day Barokas of Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Lion and the Jewel’have perfected the art of poking their noses and fingers in every matter of policy in the ministries,” they said in a joint statement which they issued at the 680 Hotel in Nairobi.

“Stop distracting the President, his deputy and their lieutenants from discharging their duties and mandate and let them do their work,” the statement said.

NO-NONSENSE

But in what they described as a selective and open crucifixion of targeted senior public servants, the elders said those targeted have proved themselves in their work, describing them as hard workers and no-nonsense when it comes to delivery in their respective dockets.

“Award winning performers are the ones being targeted and that is why we are saying let the performers work,” said Patrick Muiru, the Secretary-General of the Mt Kenya Council of Elders.

In their statement, they argued that Ms Waiguru's Huduma programme had won awards and Mr Kamau was the best performing Cabinet Secretary at the time he was suspended.

“We are talking about performance, with the President winning an award in Africa because the strides made in education, it is not possible he would not have done it alone without the Ministry of Education. It means that Prof Kaimenyi has been working and that is why the Ministry can be proud to say that they have won an award in Africa,” he argued.

“There seems to be a well-thought out roadmap to humiliate and hound out of office a number of senior hardworking public servants based, unfortunately, on the regions of the country where they hail from,” said a section of of the elders’ statement read on their behalf by the National Chairman of the Gikuyu Council of Elders Samuel Kimani.

They said there also seems to be a similar well-orchestrated scheme to surround and protect another set of senior public servants.

They further claimed well-paid and sponsored busybodies were distributed in virtually every government department, all hell-bent on ensuring the government does not deliver.