Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga (center). From left: Royal Media Services chairman SK Macharia, former Dagoretti South MP Dennis Waweru, Mt Kenya Foundation chair Peter Munga and Former KenGen Managing Director Eddy Njoroge.
Key business leaders in Mt Kenya, who were allied to former President Uhuru Kenyatta and backed opposition leader Raila Odinga in the 2022 General Election, are slowly drifting towards President William Ruto.
Notably, Odinga and his Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition have in one-and-a-half years lost the backing of the Mt Kenya Foundation as well as nominated MP Sabina Chege, East Africa Legislative Assembly MP Kanini Kega, and former Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi.
Launched in 2007, the Mt Kenya Foundation brings together Mt Kenya tycoons and is chaired by businessman Peter Munga.
Other prominent members are Titus Ibui, Kenyatta’s uncle George Muhoho, Kenya Nuts Company boss Pius Ngugi, Media mogul Samuel Kamau (SK) Macharia, former Dagoretti South MP Dennis Waweru, Mutuma Nkanata, former KenGen boss Eddy Njoroge, Magnate Ventures boss Stanley Kinyanjui and Wonder Joy Party’s Isaac Wandere.
Munga and Macharia had led the foundation to publicly declare support for Odinga but despite the Azimio candidate significantly improving his share of the Mt Kenya vote compared to previous elections, the project failed.
Kikuyu Council of Elders chairman Wachira Kiago says President Ruto’s administration has been on a deliberate onslaught on personalities, organisations, establishments and businesses associated with those who did not support its election.
“Just like the way they have been insulting even Kenyatta’s mother and staging raids against her land in Northlands, where they stole sheep and trees as well as burnt some crops, they have been working hard to silence democracy and buy forced support,” he said.
‘They are even cracking down on our cultural roots where they are arresting our very old and branding them as members of the outlawed Mungiki Sect. We are being targeted for our 2022 political stand and continued insistence that Kenyatta is the Mt Kenya kingpin.”
Kiago was referring to a case where 23 people aged between 70 and 90 years are facing Mungiki-related charges in Murang’a.
Their defence involves politicians-cum-lawyers Kalonzo Musyoka, Martha Karua, Eugene Wamalwa, Jeremiah Kioni, Ndegwa Njiru among others, most of them being Mr Odinga loyalists.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has since announced that the Director of Public Prosecutions has been consulted and the case will be withdrawn.
One of the foundation’s prominent members confided in The Weekly Review that “emissaries were sent to us in May 2023 to tell us the new State House’s power brokers were not happy with the prominent role we had played in opposing Ruto’s assent to power”.
ODM leader Raila Odinga, then Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi, then Nyandarua’s Francis Kimemia, Kirinyaga’s Anne Waiguru and then Agriculture CS Peter Munya dance during the Building Bridges Initiative rally at Kinoru Stadium in Meru town on February 29, 2020.
The source added that “we were also accused of bankrolling Odinga’s street protests… we were told to start paying taxes even on monies we received from State House to finance Azimio activities as well as suffer cancellation on numerous tax rebates our business empires had won from the Kenyatta administration”.
Some of the foundation’s members, it was further revealed, “were told that they were part of the reason the economy was nose-diving on account of tax rebates”.
To imagine that they would be targeted to raise the percentage back to 28 per cent as well as losing some “unregularised” benefits some of them had won informed rapid mellowing of some Odinga pillars in Mt Kenya region.
So bad is the situation that one of the prominent foundation members was reportedly threatened with losing a 300-acre prime property yet to be titled, forcing some to embrace negotiations with the government.
In January, more businessmen from Murang’a led by Munga and Macharia accepted to join Irungu Kang’ata’s government as budgeting and development council as advisors.
Other members of the council are Jimnah Mbaru, Olive Mugenda, John Musonik, Zipporah Ng’ang’a, Kanyenje Gakombe, Felistus Njuguna, Macharia Muthuure, Mary Muthoni and Salome Gitoho.
Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga with then Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi and then Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya at Kianjai trading centre in Meru County during a campaign rally on July 26, 2022.
Kang’ata said the members were picked as per the Public Finance Management Act 2012, refusing to discuss the political environment behind the development of such highly placed economic movers not advising at the national level, but at the devolved level.
But Macharia, after he was sworn in to start his advisory role, said the move was not informed by politics.
“We are not dwelling in the past… we are in the present and the engagement as of now is to partner with the government to achieve the most critical priorities ahead of us,” he offered.
He said their aim is to ensure Murang’a people return to their nostalgic days when they called the shots in the economy.
“This is a county that was the first to embrace technical colleges… I have all along been part of the process and I am still in it,” he said.
Munga said his motivation to join the Murang’a economic think-tank was pursuit and realisation of lost fortunes.
ODM leader Raila Odinga (second left) receives a copy of resolutions from Mt Kenya leaders during Azimio la Umoja meeting at Ruring’u Stadium in Nyeri on November 27, 2021.
“We are there to help our people work extremely hard and take opportunities as they present themselves in a bid to strengthen their wealth,” he said.
Munga led his foundation members to attend President Ruto’s three-day tour of the Mountain where he covered Kiambu, Murang’a and Nyeri counties spanning last Wednesday through Friday.
At Kangema Medical Training College, former Gatanga MP Nduati Ngugi, a confidant of Odinga loyalist Peter Kenneth, said “politics has no static positions and it is all about interests.”
“It is not wisdom for the business community to be seen fighting with a sitting government unless it reached a point where that administration is inaccessible and does not care about listening and reasoning.
"All those of us who were in Odinga’s camp have retreated to the peripheries to give the political space a chance to shape itself ahead of the 2027 polls. For now, we are playing it safe for the sake of our interests, national stability and growth.”
Jubilee Secretary-General Kioni said: “The happenings around Azimio in Mt Kenya region will not affect our loyalists since we are founded on the strength of the people.
ODM leader Raila Odinga (second right) joins other leaders in a dance at businessman SK Macharia's home in Gatanga, Murang'a County on July 27, 2021.
Nothing changes the fact that Mt Kenya and the rest of the country are looking for the slightest opportunity to legally kick this administration out of power.”
Former Education and Sports Chief Administrative Secretary Zack Kinuthia, an Azimio loyalist, admits that the flight of supporters is devastating.
“These Mt Kenya Foundation heroes are businessmen whose key interest is expanding their wealth when they have a chance, but more importantly protecting the businesses,” he said.
“Odinga too being a businessman perfectly understands them... he has also shifted ground to protect his investments before,” he added.
