Former Interior and Coordination of National Government Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi.
A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it, said Jean De La Fontaine. Fred Matiang’i, jetting into Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on April 17, steps into this proverb’s shadow.
Hailed by Jubilee Party’s Jeremiah Kioni as Kenya’s next saviour, his speculated 2027 presidential bid casts him as a technocrat poised to challenge President William Ruto. But his past as Interior Cabinet secretary tainted with abductions, court defiances and a trail of blood raises a brutal question: Is Matiang’i just Ruto with less charisma and fewer lies?
Behind him looms, probably equally as bad, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose regime auctioned our country’s future through international financial loans with little to show but plunder.
Against this are fresh faces like David Maraga and Okiya Omtatah. Will Kenyans back integrity over recycled elites? The choice isn’t just about 2027; it’s about whether this moment in our country’s history will amount to anything substantial, and whether we will rewrite our political narrative or succumb to imposed leadership.
Matiang’i’s Interior ministry years read like a manual for control. He didn’t just enforce law, he torched it. In 2018, when Raila Odinga staged a mock swearing-in, Matiang’i killed the signal on three TV stations, branding them a public menace. Courts demanded their return; he ignored them, dismissing judges as meddling. He was a man who saw the Constitution as optional. Protests were outlawed, dissent smothered and abductions became routine. By early 2022, 105 people had vanished or died, some surfacing in River Yala’s murky waters, their deaths whispering State complicity.
Miguna Miguna’s exile—twice enforced, passports voided, court orders trashed—was Matiang’i’s calling card. The Ruaraka land deal bled millions of taxpayer money, the Sh10 billion Huduma Namba scheme collapsed—a pointless waste of time and money, and children died in protests under his gaze.
Public sympathy
His defenders point to security gains, like taming Al-Shabaab after Westgate, but no checkpoint can scrub blood from the ledger. So ruthless was Matiang’i’s wielding of power that Ruto himself (yes, that guy) gained public sympathy from the events that preceded the elections, dancing on Matiang’i’s aggression all the way to State House. Ruto’s win was a creation of Matiang’i and his security regime. Now I’m even mad.
However, line him up against Ruto, and the similarities are uncanny. Both men ruled with fists—killings, graft and court defiance. Matiang’i’s Ruaraka mirrors Ruto’s land scandals; the Yala bodies echo Ruto’s protest crackdowns. Yet their styles diverge. Ruto is a showman, peddling hustler dreams with a preacher’s cadence; Matiang’i is a clerk, his orders clipped, his violence quiet. Ruto’s lies are loud, painted across rallies; Matiang’i’s are omissions, buried in silence. Both bent Kenya’s laws, but where one campaigns on top of SUVs, the other calculates, plotting, avoiding the public glare. Same rot, different mask.
Uhuru, however, casts the longest shadow. His 2013-2022 presidency piled Sh8.6 trillion in debt, with the standard gauge railway, Eurobond and Galana-Kulalu funds disappearing into elite vaults. Covid-19 funds fattened cronies, not clinics. Matiang’i, as Uhuru’s enforcer, wasn’t a passenger—he was the driver, marginalising Ruto to run the machine.
Now, Jubilee lifts him as Kisii’s champion, a technocrat to heal Kenya. But it’s Uhuru’s play—a dynasty shielding its loot. Matiang’i’s $250,000 Canadian lobby firm and World Bank stint aren’t the moves of a people’s hero; they’re elite varnish, a bid to launder a tainted past. This candidacy isn’t born of Kenya’s soil—it is grown in the opulence of Ichaweri’s shade.
Judicial freedom
So then, ask the Matiang’i brigade, who do we elect if not him? Wow! Just wow. The most annoying being the if Matiang’i is the option, I’d rather vote for Ruto guys. You mean, absolutely nobody? Not a single person you’ve seen whose integrity precedes them?
We have Maraga. Serving as Chief Justice from 2016-2021, Maraga struck down Uhuru’s 2017 election, in an unprecedented move. Jubilee slashed his budget and sent warnings, kitaeleweka, Uhuru said, but he didn’t bend, calling out assaults on judicial freedom. His record is a rare clean slate in Kenya’s swamp, even going as far as publicly claiming he’s never been involved in any corrupt dealings throughout his career. He didn’t even say this to win votes—the idea of a presidential bid was imposed on him by the people just this year.
Then we have Omtatah, the activist and senator, who fought public theft—Eurobond, illegal taxes—for decades, often against the tide. His battles were for principle, not power. A seasoned public litigant, almost any monumental public interest litigation that has improved our lives has Omtata’s fingerprints all over it.
Yet, neither carries the mythical “presidential aura” Kenya’s politics fetishizes—tribal clout, slick charisma, powerfully spoken lies. Maraga’s Nyamira base is 10 per cent of Kiambu’s votes at 100,000; Omtatah’s Busia roots can’t rival Luo or Kikuyu blocs. They fought for right, not reward, and that’s their strength—but it also is their shackle.
Kenya stands at a crossroads. Maraga and Omtatah offer a harder road—clean, untested, untethered to dynasties. Choose Matiang’i, and it’s the same game—power recycled, sins buried. Choose Maraga or Omtatah, and it’s a risk—men who stood for something, not someone, but lack the machinery to glide.
Kenya’s script isn’t written yet. Dare to seize the pen, or let Uhuru and Ruto keep it. Matiang’i’s destiny is his past; Maraga and Omtatah’s could be Kenya’s pivot.
lewisngunyi10@gmail.com.
