Kawira Mwangaza’s guitar, prayers and fasting fail to impress Meru MCAs
Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza loves the guitar. Only her husband Murega Baichu was allowed to entertain voters with his guitar during the campaigns.
But just two months in office, Mwangaza’s tune is no music for ward representatives. In fact, they say she is not listening to them.
Almost all her moves have ruffled feathers. If controversy had sisters, Mwangaza would be one of them.
In her first interview after being sworn in as the third governor of Meru, the 42-year-old promised to show her opponents – former governor Kiraitu Murungi and ex-senator Mithika Linturi – how to run a county.
However, it seems Meru County is running away from her if Wednesday’s drama with MCAs is anything to go by.
For Mwangaza, however, any publicity is great. With Baichu accompanying her everywhere not being enough, she gave the guitar apostle to two key positions in her administration. He is the Meru Youth Service patron and Meru Hustlers’ Ambassador.
She said whenever the first gentleman is seen hanging around her office, locals should not see him as Mwangaza’s husband but a hustlers’ representative.
On Mashujaa Day, the governor told MCAs she is ready take them head on.
Borrowing a leaf from National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula’s “Book of Cold Threats”, the governor has promised ward representatives hell, telling them it will rough.
“The fight for freedom does not come easy. If we have to free Meru from cartels, it must be noisy and messy,” she said.
Speaker Ayub Bundi accused the governor of failing to bond with ward representatives during a workshop in Mombasa.
The MCAs gave Mwangaza a taste of her own medicine by walking out on her despite the governor having expended kilojoules of energy to access the assembly. But Mwangaza would not take the humiliation lightly. She claimed to be heading to the “wilderness for 40 days”.
“I will fast and pray so that the demons that made them hurl insults and throw stones leave them,” she said.
If the exorcism fails, the Baite Family Fellowship bishop is ready to whip the MCAs to order just like Jesus did with merchants at the temple.
Mwangaza made her debut into elective politics in 2013 when she unsuccessfully contested the Buuri parliamentary seat.
She floored Florence Kajuju in the woman representative race in 2017.
Mwangaza went a step further by trouncing political heavyweights in Murungi and Linturi on August 9 to become the first female governor of Meru.
She will go down the annals of Meru county history as the second woman to trounce political giants and assume a non-affirmative position on the national arena.
The first woman to do so was Annrita Karimi who became Meru Central MP in a by-election 1975.
Karimi’s victory was short-lived though as male MPs in the area ganged up and fixed her in a corruption scandal.
Could history repeat itself with Governor Mwangaza?
