The former powerful provincial commissioner in the Moi regime later joined politics and secured a front-row seat in some of Kenya’s recent significant political events. In part one of this exclusive serialisation of his new book, Seasons of Hope, he reveals about a trip to see Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and betrayal by one-time ally, Kalonzo Musyoka.
In his autobiography, Against all Odds, Kalonzo Musyoka repeatedly shows that I was among the few politicians who helped him climb the political ladder to prominence. He writes: “Some of my most trusted friends and allies … among them were, Senior Kamba politicians: David Musila, Mutula Kilonzo and Johnstone Muthama.”
When he left the Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party, for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), I stood by him even as the world around him collapsed. I had to lie on his behalf during a charged political rally at Odiado Primary School grounds in Funyula constituency near the home of former vice-president Moody Awori, when politicians loyal to the then President Daniel arap Moi were decamping to the Opposition. Kalonzo had hesitated to leave Kanu. I travelled to Funyula without Kalonzo’s knowledge and informed the rally that Kalonzo was standing with them and he too was going to desert Kanu to join the Opposition. When his Cabinet colleagues resigned their ministerial positions to avoid the embarrassment of being fired by President Moi, Kalonzo dilly-dallied. As others were holding a press conference to announce their resignation, he had quietly retreated to his room at the Serena Hotel. I went to the room and prevailed upon him to sign his resignation letter and avoid being isolated. His colleagues felt betrayed when he failed to join them in the collective resignation.
Senator Johnstone Muthama and I played a key role in the negotiations that elevated him to the position of vice-president in the Grand Coalition Government of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. I helped Kalonzo when he fell out with Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto in the run-up to the 2013 General Election. Kalonzo had insisted on becoming the TNA/URP presidential candidate, but this could not be accepted by both Uhuru and Ruto. He was instead offered the position of Leader of the Majority in the National Assembly, which he rejected. I, thereafter, helped negotiate his position as Raila Odinga’s running mate. This was jointly done by Hon Dalmas Otieno and I at my home.
For many years, despite being his elder, I did many things for Kalonzo out of my respect for our community, the fact that we came from one district, Mwingi, and the relationship that we had established. I was both his confidant and foot soldier. Many a time, I went on campaign fundraising missions across the world on his behalf. Some of these missions placed me in extremely awkward and embarrassing situations. For instance: On a visit to Libya, I was tasked by Kalonzo Musyoka to deliver a letter to a Minister of State in Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government. I travelled to Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown. I briefly met the minister and handed him Kalonzo’s letter. I was ushered into a hotel. I was not successful and returned to Kenya empty-handed after four days of waiting; to his disappointment. Not all the trips were frustrating, though. I once accompanied him to a Middle Eastern country. This was a special trip. My role as chair of the LDP was to help him lobby for campaign funds. I printed many business cards, indicating my designation as the chair of the LDP. I didn’t know how seriously the country took the title of chairman until we arrived in the desert country. I was ushered into a suite while Kalonzo was given a single room. I received all the VIP treatment. The following day, we were informed that we could not meet our host, the country’s Foreign minister since he had travelled to Bahrain on holiday. We waited patiently. After four days, we were ushered into a meeting with an official of the ministry. After a brief discussion in his office, I was requested to step out and wait in the adjacent room. I never got around to asking him how much he was given and neither did he volunteer the information.
Closer home, I accompanied Kalonzo to an East African country on another fundraising mission. We chartered a private plane and proceeded to meet the leadership. We were told a response would follow, and it surely did. To date, I still hold onto very many of his secrets.
In retrospect, I think our pathways crossed and parted when, before the formation of Nasa and in an attempt to get Raila and Kalonzo to agree on one of them to be a running mate of the other, I hosted a breakfast meeting for the duo in my house, with Raila’s brother, Dr Oburu Odinga in attendance.
Later on, Kalonzo told his friends that at the breakfast meeting, I appeared to favour Raila. He told them he no longer trusted me to be his lead negotiator.
At about the same time, Mr Martin ole Kamwaro, the Wiper Party vice-chairman, suggested at a coalition retreat at Maanzoni Lodge that Kalonzo should agree to be a running mate of Raila as per the 2013 Cord ticket. Kalonzo rebuked Ole Kamwaro and removed him from the committee that was to decide on the matter.
A few days later, I met Machakos Senator Johnstone Nduya Muthama in Kitui. He informed me that I had been replaced on the negotiating team by Hon Nyenze. Muthama said that he had protested that if I would not be in the team then he, too, would withdraw, to no avail. Nyenze had been made the lead negotiator. Kalonzo said if I remained his negotiator, I would be biased against him since he already knew my views. He was so much against Raila that during one of our conversations, he told me that even if Nasa made him their flag-bearer, he would never choose Raila as his running mate because according to him, Raila was a “perpetual loser”.
Two years before the Kitui County gubernatorial battle on August 8, 2017, I was determined to take over the governor’s seat from Dr Julius Makau Malombe. I was confident. I had consulted widely among the elders, youth, women groups as well as the Wiper Party, where I was the chair. I was also serving my first term as Kitui County Senator and I had no doubt that my unflinching loyalty to the Wiper Party leader, Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, and the ideals of our party, had not gone unnoticed.
I was counting on the party’s full support and endorsement for the nomination ticket at the primaries ahead of the August 2017 election. While I did not demand direct nomination from the party, the least I expected was a guarantee of a free and fair playing field during the party primaries. I had no doubt that the people of Kitui would vote overwhelmingly for me.
I saw no reason to doubt the party leader. On numerous occasions during political rallies, party meetings, and even at private engagements with him, I got his assurance that he would stand by me and extend to me the same support I had given him for over 20 years. The statement “Ndyulwa ni vala twaumie (I can never forget where we have come from together)” dominated communication and conversations between Kalonzo and I.
Late in the year 2016, all the eight Wiper Party MPs from Kitui County visited Kalonzo at his home in Karen Nairobi with one message. They preferred me over Malombe. However, on Monday, January 23, 2017, at Kwa Vonza Trading Centre in Kitui, Kalonzo announced his preference for Malombe as governor.
His announcement did not go down well with the people. The two-day tour of the county, ostensibly to mobilise support for voter registration exercise, degenerated into acrimony. The months that followed saw Wiper Party face its biggest challenge yet. An election board handpicked by Kalonzo was then mandated to conduct nominations for Wiper candidates with instructions to ensure that Malombe emerged the winner.
In the meantime, I worried about the inroads that the Wiper Party’s nemesis, Charity Ngilu, was making in Kitui. I knew that if both Malombe and I ran head-to-head, Ngilu would get a through pass to the governor’s office. Earlier in 2016, she had angled herself into the position by publicly supporting Kalonzo’s bid for the national presidency. She knew that if she publicly fought Kalonzo and Wiper in Ukambani, she was bound to suffer a humiliating political defeat as had happened in the 2013 election. She later threw her weight behind the National Super Alliance (Nasa) in which Kalonzo was Raila Odinga’s running mate in the 2017 presidential race.
A few weeks to the party primaries, the party leader moved to confirm the rumours by co-opting his sister-in-law, Jane Muasya, into the party election board. He shut out from the exercise, the Wiper Director of Elections, Hon Major Marcus Muluvi for no other reason other than that he was my friend. I wasted no time in marshalling resources and getting my strategic plan ready for deployment. However, in all my preparations, I had not factored in the withdrawal of support for my bid by Kalonzo.
On April 24, 2017, the nomination day, I strode into the contest knowing that if the people were allowed to decide, I stood a good chance of clinching the Wiper nomination for Kitui governor. But I could not ignore the disturbing chatter as it grew even louder. In retrospect, it was as clear as day is from night that the stage had been set for my humiliation, marked out as it were by the acts of treachery that would be deployed against me. Some members of the Wiper Party Nomination Board intimated to me that they had received instructions from our party leader to do all that was within their power to ensure Malombe got through.
The plot thickened when the police, apparently with the approval of their bosses, took over the Wiper nominations in Kitui and actually participated along with county personnel in altering election results. I had never before seen police involving themselves in party nominations during my long service in the provincial administration. Alarmed, I called Kalonzo and requested that he should send the party’s secretary-general or the vice-chair to Kitui to oversee the nomination process and witness for themselves what was going on. He never did. Instead, what followed were three days of mental torment.
According to our final tally, I had won the nomination with 81,234 votes against Malombe’s 70,899 votes. We all sat waiting for the final results to be announced and for me to be declared the winner of the Kitui Wiper Party gubernatorial nomination. It, however, became apparent, that the party had held back the results as the numbers were manipulated and cooked up in favour of Malombe.
On the second day, we got information that Malombe and Japheth Mwania had visited Kalonzo at his home in Karen, Nairobi, with the fake figures showing that the former had clinched the victory. After this meeting, Kalonzo instructed the Election Board Chair to declare Malombe the winner. The board declined, but on the third day, the Returning Officer without the election board’s authority eventually declared Malombe the winner.
I was distraught and very angry. I tried to comprehend the forces that had captured the sense of wisdom and justice in our party leader. After Malombe was declared winner, I quickly returned to the drawing board, making the difficult decision to take my chances as an independent candidate, as the only remaining option.
I called a media conference to make public my decision to resign as chairman of the Wiper Party. Breaking ranks with the party I had co-founded was not an easy decision for me.
In the end, at the general election on August 8, 2017, as feared both Malombe and I lost the Kitui gubernatorial seat to Charity Ngilu. The official IEBC general election results gave me 114,527 votes against Malombe’s 74,697 votes. It was clear that if Malombe had genuinely won the Wiper nominations, I would not have beaten him with nearly 40,000 votes. I was vindicated!
