Former Ndaragwa MP Jeremiah Kioni (centre) joined by other Mt Kenya leaders during the Limuru 3 meeting at Jumuia Conference Centre in Kiambu last Friday.
It has emerged that retired President Uhuru Kenyatta's loyalists in Mt Kenya region want to promote a 10-point action plan in the area, against President William Ruto's government ahead of a showdown in the 2027 General Election.
The task of the Haki Calition, sources have said, is to come up with a strategy that will reclaim the region’s political soul that President Ruto captured at 87 percent in the August 9, 2022 General Election.
While Mr Kenyatta had proposed Raila Odinga as his preferred successor, the region rebelled and embraced Dr Ruto, who had served as his deputy since 2013.
"The targeted result is the region coming back to its senses after we have ably demonstrated to them that it was a big blunder to pawn their political soul to President Ruto," said Jubilee Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni.
Mr Kioni said: “ We will not tire, neither will we get distracted by Dr Ruto's counter-attack since we will capitalise on issues that our people are now experiencing first-hand.”
Complicating the matter are signs that even some of Ruto's key allies in the run-up to 2022 polls are buying into the action plan of Kenyatta's camp.
Power sharing agreement
Mr Kioni said the team’s programme being rolled out include sensitising the region about need to own a political party, demand a written power sharing agreement like was done in 2013, campaign against politics of tokenism and refuse infiltration through the church.
Other issues include campaigning that presidential running mates from the region be picked through a mini-election in the area, demand entrenchment of one-man-one vote-one-shilling idea into law and call out sitting legislators passing draconian tax laws.
Further, President Ruto will experience more pressure to deliver on his economic charters that he signed with area counties ahead of 2022 elections, cease sacking Mt Kenya people that Mr Kenyatta had installed as well as counter him directly by proposing a Mt Kenya presidential candidate.
"Those are the 10 points that we will engage our people in. Those dismissing us as hot air have seen nothing yet. We will convince our people with hard evidence that they can relate with as the direct recipients of deceitful rule," said former Laikipia MP Ndiritu Muriithi. To that end, Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua who together with Mr Kioni led the region into the May 17, 2024's Limuru III Conference said: "We have launched the Haki Coalition that brings together 31 political parties from the Mountain to act as our strategic attack base."
Further, Ms Karua said Limuru III Conference made it clear that "Mt Kenya finds it impossible to continue paying taxes that will end up being stolen through giving farmers fake fertilisers as well as getting directly pocketed by characters who are not getting prosecuted or sacked."
2022 warning
Kirinyaga County Jubilee chairman Muriithi Kang'ara said: "Mr Kenyatta remains genuinely concerned that despite we failing to heed to his 2022 warning that we were getting ourselves into a bottomless pit by electing Dr Ruto, there is a second chance of healing the defect in 2027."
“We should not beat around the bush about our intentions...we want to liberate ourselves from Ruto occupation and take charge of our affairs since we have the numbers and resources to be the point of reference in power plays, he said.
Former Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu was more blunt saying: "In Limuru III Conference we made it crystal clear that we are not amused having national power being exercised with our 47 percent contribution but playing the role of flower girls in it.”
The Kenyatta camp appears to be succeeding in some of their demands since Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has agreed that he supports the one-man-one-vote-one shilling agenda.
President Ruto's economic advisor David Ndii has been a strong critic of the concept of resource allocation, dismissing it as a selfish and tribal pursuit of entrenching hegemony.
“Politics of one man, one shilling seeks to favour the development of areas having abundant natural resources, good land and rainfall, transport and power facilities, and people receptive to, and active in development,” a 2020 paper by Dr Ndii reads in part.
The paper states that the overarching principle to be used as a basis for revenue allocation is spelt out in the Principles of Public Finance (Article 201), specifically 201(b) which states that “the public finance system shall promote an equitable society” and 201(b) (iii) which says that “expenditure shall promote the equitable development of the country, including by making special provisions for marginalised groups and areas”.
He blamed the debate on Agikuyu community’s “supremacist ideology and hegemonic agenda… Tyranny of numbers, domination of the weak by the strong, and ethnic superiority complexes, hence not an option”. Interestingly, Mr Gachagua’ former and current loyalists have embraced the issue of forming a Mt Kenya political party to be used as 2027 negotiation platform.
"It has never ceased to amaze us how people like Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang'ula, Alfred Mutua and Amason Kingi ended up occupying such prime positions in the government even when their votes were negligible. It is because they came riding through their own political parties when we came standing," Nyeri Senator Wahome Wamatinga recently told Inooro TV.
Mr Wamatinga now laments that "it is our own Gachagua who made us walk through that path...I had my own reservations and even called him to confirm...he assured me that it was the way to go. It is now becoming clear that the route was a doubtful choice.”
Navigate the storm
Speaking on May 19, at Endarasha Catholic Church, Mr Wamatinga said: "Now that we are in the problem, we can only support Mr Gachagua against onslaughts emerging to help us navigate the storm as we strategise on unity of purpose to sail through.”
Githunguri MP Gathoni wa Muchomba--elected on President Ruto's UDA party--said "for Gachagua to resonate well with Mt Kenya’s current pulse, he must declare presidential ambitions now and state his target is 2027 elections.”
“It is only if he does that, that we can consider him fit for the Mt Kenya region kingpin rod of authority," she said.
For Embakasi North MP James Gakuya, the bid to reclaim the respect for Mr Gachagua and Mt Kenya was to “retake Nairobi City County”, a position that seems to resonate with his Embakasi Central counterpart Benjamin Gathiru.
Former Gatanga MP Mr Nduati Ngugi says: "Indeed these Kenyatta loyalists are gaining ground with their technically troublesome demands...they are very tricky demands that will surely cause Ruto and Gachagua some sleepless nights.”
Former Kiambu County Speaker Stephen Ndichu said "it does not matter whether we will contest the presidency and fail or win...of importance is reclaiming our lost status of utilising our might to lead others into forming government".
He says: "With a presidential candidate and a political party we will be taken more seriously and if we demand written power sharing agreement that captures our numbers, it would be so".
“Our 2022 problem was that we walked into power negotiation carrying no demand, agreed to verbal promises and got ourselves into a political marriage that has no dowry neither a certificate,” he adds.
Mr Waititu says "our Gachagua did not demand what Ruto had demanded in 2013 and 2017 from our own Kenyatta. Ruto came into Mt Kenya region guaranteed of 50-50 power sharing formulae even when the votes he was bringing into our basket were negligible.”
National Assembly Majority Leader Mr Kimani Ichung'wa dismissed all this talk as "petty, narrow and tribalistic".
He said "the Ruto administration will be more than willing to listen to a healthy debate about development projects aimed at making Mt Kenya region prosperous and the country more cohesive."
He added: "Those utterances from the Haki thing are only aimed at inciting Mt Kenya people to adopt despondency while creating a wedge between the region and the rest of the civil world."
