Sultans, who once ruled the East African coast, were conquerors — forceful conquerors at that — tough rulers who were preoccupied with retaining and expanding territories.
Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho might not have chosen the “Sultan” title for himself, at first rebuffing efforts by Jubilee government officials to compare him with the tyrannical historical leaders who enslaved locals for sport, but he has slowly come to accept it. Even his political ambitions have been mirroring a sultan’s.
The six coastal counties of Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi, Tana River, Taita Taveta and Lamu had a combined population of 4.3 million as per the 2019 census and cover 82,383 square kilometres — or 14 per cent of Kenya’s land mass.
Going by his proclamations in various political events, Mr Joho believes he is the “sultan” of Kenya’s coast.
“Siasa za hili jimbo letu la Pwani zinanigusa ndani ya roho yangu (The politics of the coast region touch the inside of my heart),” he said in Msambweni in October as he drummed up support for ODM party candidate Omar Boga for the constituency’s by-election.
Mr Joho was so confident of his and his party’s influence in the region and in Msambweni, one of the four constituencies of Kwale County, that he dared Deputy President William Ruto — whose allies backed Mr Bader — to go to Msambweni and face him rather than play “cowardly” politics from Nairobi.
“Kama yeye ni mwanaume aje hapa, a-camp hapa. Tumuonyeshe what we are made of; kwamba sisi hatuchezewi. So, usitume tu hivyo vidude vidude ,” he said, basically asking Dr Ruto to visit the area in person and not send the “lightweights” who had been gunning for Mr Bader.
A man who used to hawk his grandmother’s vitumbua (rice cakes) in Mombasa when he was a schoolboy, Mr Joho might well count this as a “kitumbua kimeingina mchanga ” (soil in the cake) moment in his bid to be the Coast kingpin as he eyes national politics because his second and final term as governor has just two years left.
He might well be a sultan controlling a smaller sultanate than he believes he does — and Kwale Governor Salim Mvurya reminded him of the fact after the by-election results were out: “This is to teach him a lesson and make him respect other leaders in this region.”
One might want to remind Mr Joho of the words said by the then Coast Regional Co-ordinator Nelson Marwa in March 2017, when Mr Joho was a bitter critic of President Uhuru Kenyatta and the provincial administration.
“If you are in Mombasa, don’t interfere with Kwale, Lamu. Kwani wewe ni sultan?”
The then Lamu County Commissioner Joseph Kanyiri also had used the same terms that month: “If they want to extend their territory, then Lamu is the wrong place.”
Mr Joho would later say: “Their agenda was to make people not to vote for me (in the 2017 General Election) by deriving the narrative about the oppressive leadership of the sultan. But to the contrary, the people endorsed it, and up to today they call me ‘Sultan.’”
Mr Joho said in a recent rally that his support for ODM is to ensure coastal people have a route to the presidency, as a time will come when they will ask party leader Raila Odinga’s side to return the favour.
But as he guns for the top, anti-ODM sentiment is rising all over the coast. Might Mr Joho be a sultan without a full crown?
