The endorsement of Uhuru Kenyatta as the leader of the Kikuyu by the Minister for Environment, John Michuki, has raised eyebrows but many think there is more to the statement.
Several personalities and political forces are digging in to inherit President Kibaki’s Central Province voting bloc and mantle, which is estimated to be worth four million-plus votes.
However, underlying this succession battle is a simmering rivalry in the politics of class and power that has been playing out for about a century.
Mau Mau fighters soon after independence in this undated photo
Macharia Munene, a professor of history at the United States International University, Nairobi, says this class struggle dates back to colonial times. Then, peasants invented a tradition of resistance against colonialism.
However, a section of Africans, the so-called loyalists, collaborators and homeguards, opted to work for the colonial authorities in exchange for privileges and goodies like education, land, and jobs.
The resistance would culminate in the violent confrontation between the natives coming together under the Mau Mau resistance movement, and the British colonial government.
Central Province saw the most intense action for the seven years the Mau Mau uprising lasted. The relationship and roles of both loyalists and nationalists was more pronounced and hostile in the region than in other areas.
However, at independence, collaborators seized the levers of power and proceeded to economically and politically dominate State affairs, including distribution of resources, opportunities, senior civil service and parastatal jobs.
“Unfortunately, it was the loyalists who were better placed to take over power, having enjoyed cosy relationships with the departing colonial powers, but also having enjoyed privileges like better education than their nationalist brethrens,” says Macharia.
Perpetual struggle
It is in this context that Michuki’s statement has re-ignited the twin narrative that has defined Kenya’s and central Kenya politics.
The narrative of one community, two classes in perpetual struggle for political and economic power. It is a context in which a wealthy minority uses its access to political power to increase its economic fortunes at the expense of the majority.
First it was the British colonial settler minority (1895-1963), and then the Kenyan political and economic elite (1963-to date).
The scholar says this elite in central Kenya has dominated regional politics and seeks to succeed Kibaki.
President Kibaki himself was through out the Kenyatta regime considered an outsider. Even in 2002, he only made it to power on the back of a broad and most inclusive political movement the original National Rainbow Coalition and was even abandoned by his erstwhile ally Njenga Karume.
The foremost politician seeking to destabilise the status quo in Central Province is Gichugu MP Martha Karua who has made it clear she would be gunning for president in 2012. Political analysts saw Michuki’s statement as a warning to Karua, whom this cartel sees as a spoiler.
Former Subukia MP, Koigi Wamwere, says Michuki’s endorsement of Uhuru is an attempt by this economic elite to perpetuate itself.
“Michuki is warning other pretenders to the throne not to dare even try,” Koigi said.
Vision of founding fathers
And former Nyeri Town MP, Wanyiri Kihoro poses: “Michuki’s plot is to maintain the status quo. The inheritors of the colonial order of things that Kenyans wanted to dismantle through Agenda 4 want to propagate it. Otherwise why didn’t Michuki support Uhuru in 2002? Uhuru has not changed, what has changed now?”
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, says the turning point and the beginning of betrayal of the original vision of founding fathers happened in 1961, when Kanu constitution and manifesto were amended.
Shortly after, patriotic socialist and nationalist elements Kanu were ejected in 1966, during a scheme executed by President Kenyatta and then Kanu secretary general Tom Mboya.
In his detention diaries, Ngugi Detained, Prof Ngugi writes: “The ideological turning point was reflected in the change of the Kanu constitution and manifesto, in effect, turning the party into the opposite of what it was in 1961 – a mass movement in the service of the people.
Hardly two years after independence, founding President Kenyatta, and his foremost lieutenants in the struggle, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga had acrimoniously fallen out.
Ngugi says with the ejection of Jaramogi and his group, and others from Kanu, the party lost its socialist soul and spirit that had appealed to peasants, leaving politics and government to cold-hearted profiteer capitalists.
By 1966, towering nationalists Jaramogi, Bildad Kaggia, Achieng’ Oneko and others had left Kanu. Pio Gama Pinto had been killed, and Vice-President, Joseph Murumbi who had replaced Jaramogi as V-P, had resigned.
Mboya was assassinated in 1969, and JM Kariuki, who had no fear talking truth to power, would be murdered in 1975, on account of attempting to assume the leadership of the peasant majority.
Political stability
According to a Nigerian scholar and author, Okello Oculi, President Kenyatta was reported to have told the Sunday Times Magazine, London in 1967 that his wish was to create a local aristocracy, “Because aristocracy has ensured political stability in England”.
The same set up led to the appeal of the outlawed Mungiki to the youth in central Kenya. They rode on the message that it was time for the peasants in the Kikuyu community to arise and claim their stake, while employing the same organisational style as Mau Mau of the 1950s.
Maina Njenga, who for a long time was the leader of Mungiki before he converted to Christianity, still has a large following among the youth in Central Kenya region. The outlawed sect has become an attractive political constituency that politicians in Central Province cannot ignore.
With the passing of the new Constitution, there has been renewed hope reversing the historic betrayal of a nation-state founded on ideals of justice and democracy is within sight.
To capture this pregnant anticipation, a popular Kikuyu folk musician, Kigutha, has produced a song with the message: “Time has come for the children of the home guards to step aside, so the children of Mau Mau get a taste of the cake (political power)”
The elite club in Central has often locked out outsiders from the power table. Time will tell what happens in the Kibaki succession.
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