National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi’s planned coronation at the Agikuyu shrine of Mukurwe wa Nyagathanga on Saturday has stirred a political storm in Mt Kenya region.
While it is expected a faction of the Agikuyu elders will crown him as an elder, Mr Muturi told the Nation he will be attending merely as an invitee.
The planned ceremony has turned out to be a political hot potato in Murang’a County, which has four political factions battling for the control of Mt Kenya politics ahead of the next elections, slated for next year.
The hand of Governor Mwangi wa Iria’s Usawa political party was eminently conspicuous during the heated debate in which the county boss’s allies bitterly castigated the National Assembly Speaker and his presumed political designs.
The county assembly’s Committee on Sports and Culture, which is chaired by Habile Chege, condemned the function, terming it an affront to Agikuyu cultural identity.
Apart from Wa Iria, who has declared interest in the presidency come next year, there are those who support former Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth, the Tangatanga wing that is allied to Deputy President William Ruto and the political ‘Handshake’ of President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
The Handshake political wing dismissed Muturi’s planned coronation as a “coup against the powers and astuteness of the President”.
Sports Chief Administrative Secretary Zack Kinuthia told the Nation that “the Speaker is going too far with his political designs and is now becoming a nuisance”.
“It is as if the Speaker is trying to wrest power from the President,” he said.
Senator Irungu Kang’ata, who is nowadays associated with the Tangatanga wing, dismissed the function, saying he “would not even want to engage in its discussion since its rating is that of fake news”.
And Mr Kenneth’s wing termed the function divisive, unnecessary and one which will only serve to stir political waters in the Mt Kenya region.
Former Maragua MP Elias Mbau, a loyalist of Mr Kenneth, said it was premature and not procedural since Mr Muturi, who hails from Embu County, never sought broader support ahead of the planned undertaking.
Kariara ward MCA Karigi Murigi, who is allied to Mr Kenneth, said Mr Muturi was courting a generational curse at the holy shrine.
The community believes the community’s first couple, Gikuyu and Mumbi, were the first to incur a generation curse at the shrine.
The couple is said to have sired nine daughters but the narrative is silent on whom the nine daughters married or got children with to give rise to the community.
All the four factions were unanimous that as the custodians of the shrine, the Speaker should have had the courtesy of informing them and seeking their permission to hold a function there.
However, the conveners of the function led by Kiama Kia Ma elders’ chairman Kiarie Rugami maintained the coronation would go on.
Mr Rugami said all likeminded players had been consulted, dismissing those opposed to the function as self-seekers whose only interest is their ambitions.
Behind the scenes is the hand of the President’s family, with his uncle, Mr Kung’u Muigai, insisting the function will go on as planned.
A faction of the council of elders led by Wachira Kiago said the coronation borders on blasphemy, adding Mr Muturi is not even a member of the Gikuyu community but a Muembu who has no business being crowned in another community’s shrine.
An anonymous presser was later convened in the evening on Wednesday where it was said elders from Laikipia, Murang'a, Nyeri, Nyandarua and Nakuru counties would camp at the shrine from Friday through Sunday to stop Mr Muturi from accessing it.
Mr Muigai, who is the Kiama Kia Ma elders’ patron, has in the recent past overseen similar functions in Embu and Meru counties.
Mr Muturi, through his spokesman, Mr Njiru wa Njue, told the Nation that “all that is unnecessary politics since we are only invitees and we do not have coronation of anyone on the agenda”.
He said the Speaker will be attending a consultative meeting with Agikuyu elders to discuss Mt Kenya unity and 2022 succession.
Mr Njue said, “We want to have a Mt Kenya representative at the negotiation table for 2022 and the consultations towards that end have been going on for some time now.”
On the divisions in Murang’a, he said, “We are not going there to mediate…we do not even know why they are divided since we are meeting with likeminded elders. If they are complaining, it means they are a thousand and one miles away from Mt Kenya unity, which we are pursuing.”
