Lands minister Charity Ngilu was behind Uhuru Kenyatta’s failure to tour Kitui county last Friday. According to sources, Ngilu frantically assembled Wiper MPs from the county on Thursday morning and prevailed upon them to have Uhuru cancel the tour. Those in the know say Ngilu was not happy that the Kitui leg of Uhuru’s Ukambani trip was organised without her involvement. Isaac Kalua of Green Africa and the communications manager of Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission Tabitha Mutemi organised the president’s tour.
Because she can not now engage in politics in broad daylight, Ngilu decided to use politicians to do it for her. She directed her acolyte Charles Nyamai of Kitui Rural to mobilise his colleagues and in no time Joe Mutambu of Mwingi Central, Bernard Kitungi of Mwingi West, John Munuve of Mwingi West, Rachel Nyamai of Kitui South and Bishop Robert Mutemi who is nominated availed themselves.
Ngilu reportedly told the politicians, all of them, except Charles, first-time greenhorn legislators that she was seeing their end written on the wall. When presidents start touring your area without your involvement, she told them, know that you are in danger. Ngilu to scare the wits out of the novices told them that she had information that only Kitui governor Julius Malombe and Francis Nyenze were going to speak in the president’s meeting.
It is not clear whether indeed it is true that only Malombe and Nyenze would have spoken but what is clear is not only that Ngilu’s political edges are as razor sharp as ever but she holds sway in Kitui county going by the speed with which the leaders heeded her call in hordes. Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka himself struggles to have a meeting of even two MCAs leave alone six MPs.
But why Ngilu was so opposed to the meeting as to go out of her way to sabotage it has left many wondering and an equal number worried. Those on the worrying axis in which Kalonzo is to be found fear that Ngilu has after all not donned off her political coat as the constitution stipulates and that on the contrary she has taken the game a notch higher.
By succeeding to bring his Wiper men and women under her skirt, Kalonzo is now worried that Ngilu might use her vantage position in government to compromise the leaders. Others however say that by stopping the meeting, Ngilu scored for Kalonzo because Kalonzo had given up on the matter and let it take its natural course the moment he heard that Uhuru was visiting Kitui.
But the real reason Ngilu was against the trip, it is said, was because she feared that she was going to be exposed as having failed as Water minister. The meeting was styled as American type social hall gathering where participants fire questions and the water issue was bound to take centrestage in Kitui where the Umaa Dam that Ngilu started when she was minister stalled midway leaving locals thirstier.
As this was happening, county reps from Machakos county were threatening to boycott Uhuru’s Machakos tour demanding that they first be paid. Led by Ikombe ward rep Nathaniel Nganga and his Katangi counterpart Felix Ngui, the reps were finally paid Sh50,000 on Friday morning by Governor Alfred Mutua’s chief of staff Mwengi Mutuse. The MPs in attendance were given Sh100,000 each from the mobilisation kitty that Mutua and Machakos Town MP Victor Munyaka had picked at State House.
Before the president arrived at the so-called People’s Park in Machakos which is supposed to be the much-hyped hot-air Machakos City, the MPs were outdoing themselves to air their views live on KBC television. Without exception, all would praise Mutua to the high heavens and hail him as a development-minded governor but fail to name one project. Those who saw Uhuru as he left the park say that he might never go to another Mutua function again. Immediately the national anthem was played, Uhuru literally ran out of the venue without even trurning to be seen off by Mutua. According to a Uhuru insider, Uhuru considered the day a thorough waste as he had expected to be taken around to see development projects by the governor. At one point during the questions time Uhuru sarcastically said: “naona governor amefanya kazi” which many interpreted to mean that the governor should have done what the people were asking Uhuru to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment