Kenya’s first, First lady is not the problem. Mama Ngina Kenyatta, is an Independent glamorous first lady and freedom fighter. So why has she been thrust into the political limelight? Is it to settle 2013 political scores?
Prior to the Uhuruto marriage of convenience in 2013, both President Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are believed to have held lengthy discussions with the respected Mama Ngina Kenyatta.
The agenda and traction of those meetings (meeting) is only known to the three. The reason, and eventual end game, it would appear only the deep state knows.
Fast forward to 2017. The tension that followed the Justice Maraga and Supreme Court ruling nullifying the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta caused heightened tension in the country.
It is rumored that the former first lady, a diplomat per excellence may have influenced the behind the scenes phone calls that preceded the handshake between Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta.
And for good reasons. Mama Ngina Kenyatta has been in politics all her life. As such, she has at her speed dial all the major political players in Kenya and the commonwealth (read the colonial masters that ruled Kenya before Old Jomo came calling).
Nobody. And I mean no one in Kenya will hesitate to pick her phone call. Not even DP Ruto and Oscar Sudi. On her own, she is an undisputed King maker, primarily because she has the GEMA network at her beck and call. This is the institution foul mouthed Johanna Ngeno dared to insult. Whether he knows it or not there will be consequences here.
And now the secondary source of power. Like all other mothers, Mama Ngina is revered and respected by all her children. And many other Kenyans. A such, her opinion matters, not only to the President, but many other politicians within the region.
Sample this; When the Covid 19 crisis was at its worst, President Kenyatta admonished one of his sons for breaking protocols and exposing the former first lady to possible infection. On the mention of exposing danger to his grandmother, the young man cringed. Not because of fear of his President Dad, but the admiration that Mama Ngina attracts at home and away.
With this background in place, a hypothesis confirmed that DP Ruto has been cornered, it is easy to understand why Johanna Ngeno poured vitriol on the person of the first, first lady.
He and DP Ruto know the place of Mama Ngina in the soul of President Kenyatta. They know the special relationship she has with the GEMA Community. The audacious attack on her was calculated to stir an emotional reaction from GEMA and the President, and force the President to hasten the divorce with Ruto.
Reason? Ruto wants out of government for better or worse. He wants to have the freedom to take on his boss without due care to the oath of office as the Deputy President.
He wants to politicize every action the President takes, including the long overdue cabinet reshuffle.
And he wants to remind the GEMA Community that choices may have consequences for their people in the Rift Valley and wherever else the DP holds sway.
Put it this way. Ngeno has no reason to drag Mama Ngina Kenyatta into the cheap politics of Jubilee. Unless he has been asked to do so either by DP Ruto or one of his handlers.
For starters, Ngeno was signed by the Ruto brigade only a few months ago. Before then, he worked for one Gideon Moi, the owner of KANU. His price at the time of shifting allegiance must have been pretty handsome. Based on the zeal he has for Ruto.
His selection to take on the GEMA Community (Uhuru Kenyatta owns the brand) was timely.
He has not disappointed either. But he has ignited tribal animosity among the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin that will make him a must watch target by security agencies.
Having been in the heart of government for close to eight years, DP Ruto has insiders in the highest echelons of the intelligence system.
From this vantage position, he has been told that the GEMA community is done with him. He therefore must be using his henchmen to ignite a messy and noisy divorce for the sole purpose of branding the Kikuyu community as un reliable political allies.
He is following the same route Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi used. Non got to State House.
The hardest part for Ruto is that Raila Odinga has taken his place in Government. And is now a darling of the GEMA COMMUNITY.
Even during their worst times, Raila has never insulted the Kenyatta family, leave alone Mama Ngina Kenyatta.
If Ruto had any remaining symphathisers in the GEMA community, they must be coiling in the Mt. Kenya forest.
The MPs sympathetic to him, including Moses Kuria of Gatundu South must be embarrassed to the core.
During a live interview with Citizen TV, CS Raphael Tuju, the Secretary General of the Jubilee Party hinted that Ruto was unhappy with attacks by David Murathe and CS Keriako Tobiko.
According to Tuju, the Ngeno remarks should be compared to those of David Murathe and
CS Keriako Tobiko who referred to the DP as a clerk.
Of course the DP has condemned the attack on the first lady through the social media.
But nothing much has happened since to punish Ngeno for daring to abuse the first lady.
Deep state
That the deep state and President Kenyatta are politically done with the DP is a foregone conclusion.
But DP Ruto is not done with them yet. He wants to leave them with a rotten egg in their faces.
Ngeno tirade appeared to have been rehearsed well in advance.
It was not issued on behalf of Emukur Dikir Constituency. Or even KANU, Ngeno’s political party of the last resort in 2017.
He is one of the weapons that have been deployed by those who seek to gain most from DP William Ruto Presidency.
It so happens that Mama Ngina played a mega role, albeit behind the scenes to create the then Party of National Unity(TNA) and the URP, both political vehicles manufactured by President Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto in 2013.
URP mopped all the votes in Rift Valley (Kamatusa country) and locked out Raila Odinga.
The Mama Ngina role in this political deal has really never been made public.
But during the pre- ICC trials in The Hague, DP Ruto and President Uhuru visited Gatundu for maternal blessings.
Ruto is not a political fool and anyone who thinks so is playing to the tune of the fiddler. Underestimating the force that is William Samoei Ruto can be a grave mistake. He reckons that dragging the name of the respected former first lady into political garbage will have the political class thinking again. And so obtain the attention he so much craves for.
The DP has variously claimed that he meets the President often. But the meetings could be useless protocol encounters like those Professor George Saitoti used to have with former President Moi prior to the 2002 election.
The body language of both Ngeno and Oscar Sudi depicts two very bitter and disturbed people. They might have been fired up, acting or otherwise.
They appear like individuals ready to go to war should their man (DP Ruto) not be endorsed by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Ngeno speaks with a conviction that there will be consequences if Ruto is not supported by Uhuru in 2022.
The consequences Ngeno has planned are easily discernable.
Since 1992, precisely when Multi Party politics became a reality in Kenya, then President Moi evicted Kikuyus from Narok and Transmara to ensure they didn’t vote for Mwai Kibaki or Kenneth Matiba.
The bad blood was summarised by former Minister William Ntimama when he famously said Kikuyus must lie low like an envelope or risk being evicted from Narok.
Ngeno’s constituency is in Narok. He must be sending a similar message, using the diplomacy of a practising lawyer with foolish tendencies.
Ngeno and Sudi, and others are determined to fertilise a scenario of chaos for the sole purpose of setting up a table for DP Ruto endorsement.
Why? It so happens that Kikuyu voters constitute more than 45per cent of registered voters in Kenya.
Any candidate with GEMA backing has 30per cent of total presidential votes in the ballot long before the first vote is cast.
10 per cent of these voters are spread across the country.
And they vote to a man with their central Kenya brothers.
Ngeno is therefore implementing a political strategy for William Samoei Ruto for purposes of 2022.
