Kikuyu elders: This was our State House ritual

Elders from Mt Kenya allied tribes at State House in Nairobi on Saturday renewed President Uhuru Kenyatta’s mantle to lead the community for the next five years.

He had received the mantle in November 2012 to take over from Mwai Kibaki, and this saw him contest the presidency in 2013 and 2017 on their behalf.

“We in 2012 handed him two special sticks (mithigi; muthigi, singular) that symbolise acceptance to lead. These are not ordinary sticks, because they have sacred rituals and accompanying instruments attached to them,” Agikuyu Council of Elders chairman Wachira Kiago told the Nation.

One of the sticks is straight and denotes believe in one God while the other comes with two prongs at the top end, signifying the ancestral spirits (ngomi).

For one to qualify for such trappings of the apex leadership of the communities, one must be a male, who together with his last-born son must be circumcised.

That man is recommended to the community by two categories of elders – athuri a matathi and athuri a Matura Nguru – and the endorsement of the apex of elders called arathi (prophets) after conducting their own due diligence.

“The arathi particularly vet whether the proposed community spokesman has engaged in serious crimes like murder, witchcraft and rape/defilement. No one found to have engaged in general crime against the community qualifies to be anointed as a leader,” Mr Kiago said.

The muthigi signifying one God (Mwene Nyaga) and who is believed to reside in Mt Kenya (Kirima gia Kirinyaga) before presentation to the anointed spokesman is first taken for a 40-day prayer session at the throne of God in the mountain.

Having done this 10 years ago, the prophets did not do it this time around because after deliberations they decided that “the President is still young and has not shown any sign of duty dereliction and hence a unanimous decision to renew the mantle for him”.

In the custody of the President now are the two sticks – the two-pronged one being the bearer of the power to lead – a circumciser’s knife that bestows the President with power to circumcise the community’s lads and a set of stringed beads that gives him the power to recommend the dressing code for elders and others in their collective ringermates.

He was also presented with a sword that gives him the power to slaughter a goat for rituals as well as a horn to empower him to rally the community together for a cause.

“The President was also handed a spear and a Somali sword that empowers him to call his people to war,” he said.

And immediately after his leadership mantle was renewed, the President invoked the horn to rally the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru Association (Gema) behind the presidential bid of Raila Odinga in the Azimio la Umoja coalition.

“Most of the deliberations in the meeting cannot be discussed in an unstructured manner…That will go against our oath of confidentiality. But suffice to say that the President made his case for one uninterrupted hour in the Gikuyu language and we took the oath to rally our people behind that cause,” Mr Kiago said.

Independent State House sources revealed that the President narrated to the elders – who numbered 3,500 and came from across the country where Gema people reside or work – the frustration he had endured at the hands of his deputy William Ruto.

“The President emotionally accused Dr Ruto of abandoning his duties and hitting the campaign trail for 2022 and incited Mt Kenya leaders against him,” a source told the Nation.

The bigger scheme was that Dr Ruto would inherit and dismantle President Kenyatta’s structures in Mt Kenya to relegate the latter to lame-duck status with no voice both nationally and in the region.

According to the sources, the President explained his January 12, 2019 reference to some of his allies being “washenzi” (stupid).

“He told us that he was incensed when he held a meeting the previous week with some Mt Kenya leaders to plan how the region would get more development projects…. He said it was for that purpose that he had appointed area people to head important ministries,” the source said.

Some MPs from his political backyard leaked the information to the media while others posted it on social media.

“We perfectly understood him and identified with his frustration that led him to use that word on those characters… He told us that he was deeply offended when he saw his longtime allies ganging up with Dr Ruto to reveal too much of him to members of the public in a way that even infringed his privacy,” said the source.

The closing remarks, according to the sources, were that the President will team up with the elders and Mr Odinga, descend on the Mt Kenya region and hold at least 40 meetings to win area voters to Azimio la Umoja.

This declaration on Sunday won the ridicule of MPs Rigathi Gachagua (Mathira) and Alice Wahome (Kandara), both of whom scorned the meeting as “dead on arrival”.

Mr Gachagua said “let them come to our regions with their meetings and for every one they hold, we will be holding three counter-ones”.

He said the President is late in staging a fight with Dr Ruto as the August 9 polls draw closer.

“He will change nothing and his effect will be counterproductive. He remained aloof and coming back to us when we have grown up and moved on is being overambitious, especially coming riding on the backs of divisive political brokers,” he said.

Ms Wahome said “the biggest enemy for Azimio success is the President himself since he is riding on the false hope that he can influence Mt Kenya like he used to do from 2012”.

She that said if Mr Odinga was wise, “he is better off packaging himself as an independent aspirant”.

She warned that the President “will mess you up, inconvenience you by promising you Mt Kenya numbers that are no longer under his grip and should you fall for that trap and shortchange your reliable traditional allies for deceptive newfound warmth in Mt Kenya, the blame will be you”.

The elders and the President decided that the Mt Kenya region would only pursue its relevance in the next government through the National Assembly, Senate, Council of Governors and county assemblies.

“With the State House tenancy now out of bounds for us in the next government, it was decided that we all belong to the Jubilee Party and insist on all our Mt Kenya leaders being elected under it,” Mr Kiago said.

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