Kang'ata opponents: Uhuru BBI letter cannot make you governor

A December 30, 2021 letter that Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata sent to President Uhuru Kenyatta, warning him that the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) was unpopular in Mt Kenya, has so far served as his most powerful selling point in his bid for the governor’s seat.

He has used the letter to project himself as an honest person who is ready to suffer the consequences of speaking truth to power – and voters and Deputy President William Ruto are buying it.

At public functions, Dr Ruto introduces Mr Kang’ata as “huyu Kang’ata wa barua (Kang’ata, the letter man) and the electronic advertisements that the senator is running have Dr Ruto saying those words in the opening line.

“This letter was the start of my political persecution. The President de-whipped me from my chief whip position,” Kang’ata told a political meeting in Kandara on February 16.

“He sacked my staff and I had to absorb some of them in my private arrangements … They started probing my legal professional engagements as well as threatening me with death.”

The run was good, until his opponents in the Murang’a gubernatorial race started watering down the famed letter.

He is now being challenged to explain why he did not use the same letter-writing skills to provide oversight for outgoing Governor Mwangi wa Iria in the years has been its chief watchdog in the Senate.

He is accused of remaining mum when the governor was working himself into being charged with stealing the Sh544 million from the county, a matter now in court.

Critics also say Mr Kang’ata did not consider writing a letter to Mr Wa Iria to complain about white elephant projects, lack of value addition in the agriculture sector, lack of all-weather open-air markets, poor health services, with medicines stolen from hospitals, and poor feeder roads.

“It beats logic why he keeps hyping that letter. It was a good move then, had it not been influenced by political survival where he was looking for an excuse to jump ship and rejoin the Tangatanga wing of politics that he had abandoned a year earlier,” said former Maragua MP Elias Mbau.

Speaking on March 21 in Gikindu village, Mr Mbau said Kang’ata’s letter was overrated.

While campaigning for Mr Jamleck Kamau, the Murang’a gubernatorial aspirant under Azimio la Umoja, Mr Mbau said Mr Kang’ata exhibited bad manners by addressing the President in an open forum though he had unlimited access to him.

While Mr Kamau supports ODM leader Raila Odinga’s bid for the presidency, Mr Kang’ata is vouching for Dr Ruto. Others who want the seat are Joseph Wairagu (DP), Irungu Nyakera (Farmers Party) and Dr Moses Mwangi, who was yet to declare his party.

Woman Rep Sabina Chege and former Kandara MP Joshua Toro have withdrawn from the race after the Jubilee Party prevailed on them to let Mr Kamau get a direct ticket.

“As the majority chief whip, he had access to the President. Even if he feared relaying the message verbally, he should have written the letter and handed it over to him,” Mr Mbau said.

“But he wrote the letter and posted it to the President through media houses. That is not heroism, it is bad manners.”

Mr Kamau said he occasionally meets with Mr Kang’ata over a cup of tea and “one of the few things that I fault him for is that letter.”

He said he tells Mr Kang’ata that he gained political mileage with the BBI letter but in Murang’a the senator did not write a letter to demand prudence in the use of county funds.

“We should be having several letters by now to prove to us that Mr Kang’ata has been a good oversight senator,” Mr Kamau said at the Gakoigo show ground in Murang’a South on March 25.

“He should produce those letters that he wrote to the county government demanding transformational policies on behalf of the people he now wants to use to become their governor.”

But Mr Kang’ata remains defiant, saying that in his time as senator, he had Mr Wa Iria summoned by the Senate oversight committees eight times.

“That is a record (summoning) of twice per year … He only honoured the summonses twice and he has since been fined Sh500,000 for the defiance…that was all my workings,” he said.

“Those asking about my letters of oversight on the Murang’a County government, I have a 10-inches-thick file about them.”

Mr Kang’ata also said: “I recently forced the county government to unfreeze dairy farmers’ bank accounts that had Sh235 million in them.”

The county government, the cooperative department and the financial institutions had collectively frozen the accounts following a contractual dispute between Murang’a Cooperative Creameries and dairy farmers.

“The time for Mr Kang’ata to move to real issues instead of riding on that letter is yesterday…it is not even today,” said Prof Ngugi Njoroge, who studies Mt Kenya politics.

Prof Njoroge said that “when opponents start fighting what you call your strength, the most sensible thing to do is to introduce into the market a series of other strengths and the time for Murang’a gubernatorial aspirants to compete on what they will offer is now”.

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