Only Uhuru can tame political chaos in his Central backyard

The ‘Ndindi Nyoro affair’ must rank as one of the daftest moments of the Jubilee administration. It’s not so much about the Tanga Tanga MP for Kiharu, who is a pompous show-off. It’s about the utterly foolish way the government handled the matter. Let’s start with the manner of his arrest. Following the church confrontation the MP staged in his constituency last Sunday, he appeared in the evening at Royal Media Services studios in Nairobi where he was a guest at a vernacular TV talk show. Shortly, a platoon of police officers in a blue Land Cruiser appeared at the gates of the media house.

KILL A FLY

Why were the police being so obvious when they knew they were being filmed? Was it intentional? Where were they all this time from when the MP was in Kiharu earlier up to when he came to Nairobi? Couldn’t they have waylaid him at a more discreet place, like his home?

The arrest was eventually effected the next day in Murang’a town after Nyoro had spent the whole day in well-publicised appearances across his constituency. Again, the police chose the most public venue to corner the MP. That was a town hall meeting hosted by another vernacular TV station where Nyoro and other local leaders were present. Armed policemen in GSU uniforms surrounded the hall waiting for the meeting to end, after which they nabbed the MP. But why brazenly bring dozens of GSU men to arrest one nondescript guy? Why use a sledgehammer to kill a fly? What optics were being communicated? It didn’t make sense.

2007/08 MEMORIES

Deputy President Wiliam Ruto’s Rift Valley team loves to gush how they have already sewn up the Mt Kenya vote. It’s a lot more complicated than they know. True, Ruto as the DP has an important following in the region, but this support is on thin ice. Plenty of people there are grateful for the key support he gave to Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2013 and 2017 elections. They see his sidelining, via the ‘Handshake’, in what for all practical purposes is a deadly power struggle as a betrayal.

Then there is the question of Raila Odinga. A whole generation in Central Kenya has been conditioned through successive elections – 2007, 2013 and 2017 – to view Baba as the enemy to Kikuyu political aspirations. Changing this ingrained mindset is not easy. Still, this does not amount to an automatic endorsement for the DP. There were mixed feelings when Uhuru first teamed up with him ahead of the 2013 election. Suffice it to say that memories of the 2007/8 events were still raw.

MEDIA CIRCUIT

Even now, key elites in the region remain profoundly uneasy about a Ruto presidency. It doesn’t help that Tanga Tanga’s rivals in Kieleweke paint people like Nyoro as not only owing loyalty to Ruto first, but as being in active opposition to President Kenyatta. They cite many instances where Tanga Tanga disparage Uhuru and his initiatives like the Big4Agenda, the ‘Handshake’ and the Building Bridges Initiative. (As for Tanga Tanga, they scornfully peddle tales about Raila bewitching Uhuru with ‘juju’ via the ‘Handshake’ such that the President presumably no longer thinks straight.)

In the scheme of things, Nyoro is small fry. Now, thanks to the government’s clumsiness, he has become a household name. The MP has started to fancy himself as a Kenneth Matiba, even using the latter’s famous “Let the People Decide” slogan. (Matiba once represented the same Kiharu constituency which Nyoro now does). After the police released him, the MP has become a fixture on the media circuit, giving earnest interviews praising the virtues of the “Hustler Nation”.

TOXIC POLITICKING

At the Murang’a town hall meeting that preceded Nyoro’s arrest, ordinary residents spoke passionately on one overriding theme: the unity of the Mt Kenya region. They squarely blamed the paralysis in the region on the polarising Kieleweke-Tanga Tanga wars. The region’s political future, it was argued, was being imperilled in the current atmosphere of toxic and hysterical politicking. It was particularly disgraceful, as was noted, that the factional battles were being fought at church venues on almost every Sunday. “We face a bleak future if this Kieleweke-Tanga Tanga nonsense is not stopped forthwith. What makes it worse is that these wars are being fuelled from outside,” complained an MCA from Mathioya constituency.

There is one person who can sort out this confusion with finality: Uhuru. But he remains strangely disengaged even as his home region burns. The President’s hands-off attitude has come under fierce criticism from across Central Kenya. Huge pressure is building up across the region for him to convene an under-the-tent meeting with local leaders to chart the way forward. They want to be told about the ‘Handshake’ and what is in it for them. Most of all they want to hear from Uhuru’s own mouth – not through emissaries – who is his choice of successor and why he will be good for the region.

[email protected]