'Sasa pesa imefika': Stories of Moi, Ruto, Kirwa and Jirongo

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

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Former President Daniel arap Moi (background), President William Ruto (left), Kipruto Kirwa and Cyrus Jirongo.

Photo credit: Nation Media Group

By Kipkoech Tanui

Veteran journalist

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In his words, he had been invited for lunch at State House and was very hesitant as he didn’t consider himself one of the people who should get the honour of sharing a meal with Moi. He was given a good welcome. He sat back and waited for the tearing of ribs and gulping of mursik to start. But then Moi walked in and greeted him as “Makokha”! That was the message that the lunch date came with: that you are not one of us. Why Makokha? Because Kirwa came from a cosmopolitan constituency called Cherangani, which the late doyen of opposition politics, Masinde Muliro, once represented and Kirwa inherited a bigger chunk of the Luhya vote. Now it also happens that Muliro had been felled following a petition by John Rotich, and Kirwa won the by-election. Of course, by now you remember that Muliro died on a flight from London to Nairobi. And guess who was also on that flight? Biwott. Conspiracy theorists had a field day.

By the way, and for comic relief, something else I learnt from another close friend of Jirongo: Because of Luhya supremacy tussles, he would at times share Uhuru Kenyatta’s “uji” with now Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, but when one of them went to the washroom, he would discreetly order a new glass to drink from. It so happens that one of their kinsmen and MP, Apili Wawire, had made the mistake of having too much at a function. When he rose to speak, he collapsed. All he managed to say once he took the mike was: “Hii sprite!” (this soda!). And what was the basis of the trust deficit? I suspect it is because Mudavadi was considered close to Moi because his father, the late Moses Mudavadi, was the former president’s boss in Kabarnet when he was a teacher, and the senior Mudavadi was the one who nudged Moi to join politics, with the guarantee that if things did not work out, he would just come back to his job. What had paved the way for Moi to join the Legislative Assembly? It so happened that his predecessor, Dr John Tameno, a veterinarian, had taken too much “uji” and became its slave.

Now this is an interesting one. Like Mama Zipporah, her late husband Paul and son Kiprono, as well as senior Chesire, I come from the Tugen sub-group of the Kalenjin community. But the side I come from is the former South Baringo (now Mogotio and Eldama Ravine constituencies), and our dialect is closer to Nandi, which is Kirwa’s and Ruto’s. And unknown to me, Kirwa always thought I was Nandi. And so we sit for a cup of tea, and he is not himself. So I ask him why, and he blurted in mother-tongue: “These Tugens are just foolish and like conspiring. Moi through Zipporah is pushing Kiprono against me, and also Chesire against Ruto. These Tugens should go run for political seats in Baringo, where they belong. In fact, as if that is not enough, they are also fighting to monopolise businesses in Eldoret and Trans Nzoia. Meanwhile, their people in Baringo are queuing for relief food.‘Hii tu ni ujanja ya Moi!’” (This is trickster Moi’s plan).