In the days leading to President Ruto’s swearing in, some supporters sent apologies to the president-elect to the effect that they would not be attending the Garden Party in State House because from Kasarani, they would turn right and attend to a long-standing matter.
The long-standing matter was historical land injustices in Kiambu. Their immediate target was the vast Kenyatta estates between Kasarani and Gatundu, but by no means the only ones. As I wrote in the posted op ed “Of Land and the Luo Bogeyman,” when I was growing up, one could have walked from my home in Limuru to Gatundu without stepping on the land of a peasant.
The Kikuyu class cleavage, Uthamaki versus Mungiki, is arguably Kenya’s most potent political problem. It was, as the op ed explains, the cause of the Jaramogi Jomo fallout and Moi’s ascendancy to vice president, in what I have called the Kikuyu Kalenjin “power for land” pact.
Kikuyu class conflict has been bottled up by the political tactic of creating a siege mentality in a community by inventing external enemies, political bogeymen. Jaramogi was the first victim of bogeyman politics.
When it looked like Jomo would die, and Tom Mboya seemed to be ascending to power, he was assassinated, and the bogeyman was expanded to the entire Luo through the 1969 oathing ceremonies. Jomo survived the 1969 heart attack, but by the mid seventies it was a matter of how soon.
Those of us who, as we say in Gikuyu, have eaten a bit more salt, can relate the demonization of William Ruto to the Kenyatta succession political drama that played out between the Change the Constitution shenanigan and the Njonjo inquiry. Those who have not eaten as much salt can read up on the Change the Constitution movement in Karimi and Ochieng’s book The Kenyatta Succession.
Moi began his presidency supplicating to Uthamaki. I have recollection of Moi regularly speaking Kikuyu, and on one occasion doing a full prayer in Kikuyu. Fuata Nyayo was an olive branch.
But Uthamaki would have none of it. The bogeyman campaign began. How can we be led by a herdsman? Reassurances were given to the Kikuyu masses that Moi was a passing cloud, normal service would resume.
It peaked at the 1983 Rungiri church service where Kiambu tycoon Samuel Githegi, with Charles Njonjo in attendance, proclaimed that iguthua ndongoria itikinyagira nyeki, a flock led by a lame sheep does not find pasture.
Many Kenyans, particularly the young and those who don’t read history, think that the political violence unleashed by multiparty politics in 1992 was new. The 1992 violence was in fact a replica of the political violence in the run up to the 1963 elections.
Overnight, Raila became a Kikuyu hero. It was not to last. Kibaki was elected on a new political dispensation to end tribalism and enact a new constitution within 100 days. Uthamaki had other ideas, which Michuki rationalised as handling the liver, the slippery nature of power.
Kibaki’s capture by Uthamaki ideology cost him the 2007 re election, and brought the country to the brink of civil war. Had Uthamaki honoured the NARC MOU, he would, in all likelihood, have been handed a second term with ease.
Instead Uthamaki went about gucokia rui mukaro, returning the river to its course. John Michuki took to speaking Kikuyu in official meetings. Jomo Kenyatta’s portrait replaced Moi’s on the currency. The NARC dream died. We have been paying the price ever since.
I did a short stint advising Uhuru Kenya when he was opposition leader, short because I did not have the deferential constitution of palace courtiers that he was accustomed to. One of the pieces of advice I gave him was to rise above ethnic political mobilisation.
My last conversation was a brief phone call after I saw him on TV being enthroned as muthamaki by Michuki and company. Had he heeded, he would not have ended up in the ICC, but then again, he might not have become president, seeing as it was ICC sympathies that propelled him.
The Uhuru Ruto ticket was born of an existential threat. If they did not hang together they would hang separately. But as soon as the ICC threat was out of the way, Uthamaki reverted to default settings. Hustler, Tanga Tanga.
Uhuru’s legacy will forever be tainted by BBI, the 2022 Bomas coup attempt, and his continuing attempts to undermine his successor. But why? Moi retired and left the stage. Kibaki retired and left the stage. Two reasons.
First, money. Take the 11000 acre Ruiru holding. The Northlands City development occupies 5,000 acres. Take a conservative figure of Sh50 million per acre. That’s a tidy Sh250 billion monetisation of land for which there is no record of purchase.
Second, dynastic hubris. The 2010 constitution outlawed individual portraits on the currency. When new designs were presented to Kibaki, with Uhuru in attendance as finance minister, he threw one of his famous juvenile tantrums. A compromise was reached. The portrait was replaced by the KICC, with Jomo’s statue prominent.
I am told that he threw another one at the idea of the Bomas of Kenya Convention Centre, now under construction at a lunch in Paris. It is suspected that the reason was that it would eclipse the KICC.
To my friend Omar Hassan. You don’t owe anyone an apology for speaking the truth.
To my Kalenjin brothers and sisters, keep your cool. Even this will come to pass. Moi overcame it. William Ruto will.
To the opposition. For the last so many elections, Kikuyu voters have been mobilized to elect one of our own and to send Raila home. They have no reason to wake up early to vote for you. Uhuru and or Gachagua have no Kikuyu votes to deliver. They are self-serving charlatans.
To Uhuru Kenyatta, Rigathi Gachagua, Uthamaki ideologues and ethnic chauvinists writ large, normal service is not resuming. The bogeyman act has run its course.
And to my fellow sons and daughters of Gikuyu and Mumbi, I have three questions. What has Uthamaki done for us? How has President Ruto wronged us? Kihooto kiha? END
David Ndii is President William Ruto’s economic advisor
