The Senate building in Nairobi.
About 30 friends — mostly young lawyers and professionals from Murang’a County — were huddled in a colleague’s sitting room in Kikuyu, Kiambu County. It was late 2016, the air thick with tea steam and political prophecy.
We had gathered for what researchers call a focus group discussion: a structured, moderated conversation aimed at teasing out insights, perceptions and motivations that would never appear in a cold survey form.
The question on the table? Whether Yours Truly should dare the Senate race in 2017.
Twenty-eight of them were categorical: defend your Kiharu Constituency seat. According to them, moving to the Senate was like leaving a sure meal to chase the smell of nyama choma drifting from a neighbour’s compound.
But one man, my longtime friend Njenga, stood like Prophet Nathan before King David — alone, firm, and disturbingly persuasive.
Upward mobility
He cleared his throat and delivered his verdict, almost biblical: “Upward mobility in politics is limited in the National Assembly. Yes, you’re popular in Kiharu — but popularity, my friend, is like manna: it melts quickly with the morning sun. Better you gamble now with the Senate. Lose there? You fall higher. Win there? You rise faster.” His was the voice crying in the wilderness. But even top national figures shared the dominant view: It was too risky.
Months later, I met then Deputy President, now President, William Ruto. He had heard rumours of my senatorial ambitions and wasn’t convinced.
“Are you sure this is wise?” he asked.
“Sir,” I replied, mustering the faith of young David before Goliath, “let me try. If I lose, it is well. If I win, help me secure a flag.” By ‘flag’ I meant a leadership post.
And so began the journey — without resources, with doubts swirling around me like the wind that troubled Prophet Jonah, and with a county so large that sometimes even finding polling agents felt like searching for the lost coin in Luke 15.
At one point, the Deputy President summoned me, displeased that I was allegedly invoking his name on the campaign trail.
I smiled innocently. “Yes, I’ve mentioned you — but surely, what harm is there?”
“I’ll come and deny it,” he warned.
“I know you won’t,” I answered. He burst into laughter.
The only real anchor was a proverb an elder once told me: “You cannot bury a youth; he sprouts elsewhere like a mushroom.”
He meant that youth have the most precious commodity — time. When young, you try. Fall. Rise. Repeat. Like Peter walking on water, slipping, yet stepping again.
Eventually, through stubborn effort and a little divine mercy, we won.
Great Jubilee fallout
I was rewarded with the Deputy Chief Whip position. Later, during the great Jubilee fallout — the political equivalent of the walls of Jericho tumbling — I was promoted to substantive Whip.
Now, many Kenyans ask: What does a Whip really do?
A Whip is the shepherd of the political flock: enforcing discipline, counting votes, ensuring senators attend sittings, negotiating with rival parties, monitoring committees and, sometimes, recommending sanctions for those who wander off like lost sheep. It is a role that demands both firmness and grace.
From the Senate, I carried four enduring lessons.
Lesson One: Devolution is a living organism serving in the Senate Public Accounts Committee felt like reading the Book of Chronicles — volumes of audit reports, testimonies, and financial genealogies. You learn how counties breathe: their wage bill struggles, pension liabilities, procurement pitfalls, and the indispensable need for competent professionals. You gain the bird’s-eye view of county management — seeing not just trees but the whole forest.
Lesson Two: Counties are classrooms of best practice
At a devolution conference in Kakamega, I discovered Governor Oparanya was building tarmacked roads at far cheaper rates than those advertised by national agencies. That revelation birthed Murang’a’s Smart City programme — urban roads paved using local resources.
In Kwale, under Governor Mvurya, I admired beautifully renovated ECDEs. That sparked our Murang’a ECDE modernisation programme.
Modern systems
In Vihiga, Governor Otichillo showcased a GIS system. That planted in me the seed of digitisation — a seed that later germinated into the modern systems Murang’a is now deploying.
Truly, as the proverb says: “He who travels learns.”
Lesson Three: Global exposure widens the mind
At a US governors’ conference, unlike Kenya, where protocol fills the room, leaders quietly listened to private sector innovators. A young man introduced driverless cars and predicted that in future, parking spaces would be unnecessary — cars would be in constant motion, summoned only when needed.
It struck me: If Kenya embraced private-sector-driven innovation, we could leap. If we made manufacturing our drumbeat, we might double GDP per capita in a decade. Manufacturing creates jobs, earns foreign currency, and tames inflation — the way Joseph, in Genesis, stored grain to stabilise Egypt.
Lesson Four: Senate teaches real politics. Passing the third revenue-sharing formula required every trick in the political playbook — alliances, persuasion, late-night caucuses, threats of sanctions, and appeals to patriotism.
Then came the Jubilee fracture. Raila Odinga, though outside government formally, became a central figure. No major decision moved without his nod — a reminder of Proverbs 21:1: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wills.”
When the substantive Whip’s seat opened, I had to quietly lobby Senator Orengo to arrange an audience with “Baba.” The seat was earmarked for someone else. But Raila Odinga called President Uhuru and declared, “Give it to Murang’a.” And just like that, like Isaac blessing Jacob, the mantle shifted.
Then came 2020. Another focus group revealed deep public dissatisfaction with the Jubilee administration. I wrote an honest letter — simple, direct, perhaps too frank. It leaked. Pressure mounted to recant. I refused. I was expelled. And so began my journey into Tanga Tanga (Dr Ruto’s Jubilee faction at the time).
As Ecclesiastes says: “To everything there is a season.”
And the Senate season, for me, was politics at its best: rich in lessons, humour, heartbreaks, growth, and grace.
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Dr Kangata is the Governor of Murang’a County. Email: [email protected]
