Saturday, October 1, 2011

Why Mungiki sought to meet Uhuru




Updated 4 hr(s) 43 min(s) ago
By Athman Amran and Wahome Thuku
Local Government Assistant Minister Lewis Nguyai met with top leaders of the Mungiki sect several times between January and March, 2008 attempting to be connected to President Mwai Kibaki and other top politicians.
The Kikuyu constituency MP said he met two Mungiki leaders referred to at the ICC court as Mr X and 12 in January at the Jacaranda Hotel, Nairobi, in January 2008.
"They told me it was most desirable to get to President Kibaki," Nguyai told the court.
Nguyai told the court that if they could not get to the President they would then want to be connected to Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Environment Minister John Michuki or Internal Security Minister George Saitoti.
Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta (centre) with family members and friends outside the ICC, Friday. [PICTURES: EVANS HABIL/STANDARD]
"They told me I should specifically get Uhuru. They wanted to make contact with Uhuru Kenyatta," Nguyai told the ICC when he was being led in his submission by Uhuru’s lead lawyer Steven Kay.
Nguyai said that although he did not connect them with Uhuru he gave them his telephone contact and got theirs after ascertaining that they were top leaders of the Mungiki sect.
"I met with them from January, February and March. I met with them eight times and were never in contact with Uhuru," Nguyai told the court.
The two Mungiki leaders wanted to be connected to top leadership claiming that they had plans to end the violence that broke out after the 2007 General Election.
"They wanted money and resources and ammunition to fight those fighting the Kikuyu people," Nguyai said.
After the third or fourth meeting the two Mungiki leaders began asking for token money for transport and to buy credit for their mobile phones.
"I would give them pocket money of between Sh2,000 and Sh3,000," Nguyai told the court. He said the two Mungiki leaders told him that their network was not in operation because of the violence and thus could not get any money.
Nguyai, however, said he could not recollect whether the meetings took place before the violence in Naivasha.
He however said that after the Naivasha and Nakuru violence the two told him that the work was not done well and that it was carried out by non-professionals.
Nguyai said the Mungiki leaders told him that had they been involved they could have done a much cleaner job.
School fees
The MP said he had particularly become familiar with 12 who had claimed he had lost a number of relatives in the violence and was taking care of a number of children and thus wanted assistance with school fees.
Nguyai helped send the children to private schools in his Kikuyu constituency and added that he even at one time visited former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga at Naivasha prison.
He told the court that Uhuru had told him he wanted nothing to do with the Mungiki as it would be a blow to his political career, adding that he lost in the 2002 presidential elections because some people tried to associate him with the sect.
Nguyai also narrated how rival political leaders came together to calm the situation during the 2008 post-election violence.
Among those who spearheaded the joint peace campaigns by PNU and ODM MPs were Uhuru Kenyatta and Westlands MP Fred Gumo. The two were picked to head the campaign during a meeting at Parliament on January 30, as chaos threatened to spill over from the Rift Valley to Nairobi and Central Kenya.
Testifying before the International Criminal Court, the Kikuyu MP said Uhuru was appointed to head the PNU coalition while Gumo led the MPs affiliated to ODM. And the MPs immediately hit the road addressing mobs that gathered in various markets and towns in Kikuyu and Limuru areas.
Nguyai was testifying in Uhuru’s defence, to prove that the Deputy Prime Minister did not plan the violence but instead worked hard to contain the chaos.
Nguyai said he was at the Intercontinental Hotel when the controversial presidential election results were announced and he drove back to the KICC.
"I went to the swearing in ceremony at State House getting there around 5 or 5.15pm and the ceremony took over one hour. It was a formal occasion conducted by the Chief Justice,"
The MP said he did not see any members of the Mungiki at State House contrary to claims by the prosecution that the sect members had gathered there that day.
Nguyai then recalled how he and other leaders in his Kikuyu constituency moved in to assist IDPs arriving from the Rift Valley in buses and lorries at Kanjeru area.
"The initial reaction of my constituency was shock. Then we started receiving the people and it turned into a humanitarian aid assistance," he said. "The DO and I set up settlement committee. Since we couldn’t get aid, we wrote to residents in the neighbourhood for assistance."
He said the IDP were taken in by the locals and there were no camps in the constituency. Nguyai denied that there were meetings organised by the leaders to plan retaliation.
Flight to Rift
He said later he was called by Internal Security Minister George Saitoti to join him in a flight to the Rift Valley as the chaos spilled over to Nakuru and Naivasha.
"We were flown to Karagita in Naivasha where we witnessed first-hand violence," he recalled.
He said at Karagita town, a large group of the Kikuyu with crude weapons stood on one side of the road and other communities behind flower farms and police were in between shielding them from confrontations.
"It must have been a day or two after the serious conflicts had started.
Nguyai said he and Saitoti addressed the mobs in bid to contain the tension.
"I can’t tell if they were Mungiki or not. Mungiki are amorphous, with no identifying features. Some of them wear dreadlocks and other use snuff. I did not see any of those,"
They then went to the area police station and addressed more IDPs who wanted transport back to their homes.
"We then went to Nairobi-Nakuru highway where people were blocking the road. We talked to them but as we were leaving they reassembled and Saitoti instructed the police to disperse them. As we left we saw police throwing teargas and moving in trucks to disperse them,"
Nguyai, who had just been elected to Parliament on a PNU ticket, said the violence in Naivasha had an effect on Nairobi.
He said January 30, at around midnight, he received a call from a man who he did not know alerting him that there would be a car going round parts of Kiambu that night to call on the locals to rise and revenge on what had happened in Kiambaa.
"I called DC and other elders to see if they could manage the situation," he told the court.
They following morning, he and other area leaders began the fire-fighting response at Kinoo where hundreds of youths had gathered agitating for revenge.
He then moved to Gitaru some four kilometres away. Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth joined him and they moved to Zambezi where more groups were blocking the highways. They then linked up with Uhuru who had also gone to quell tension in Kikuyu town.
Nguyai identified pictures of Uhuru, who had mounted on a vehicle, in his bid to calm the agitated mob.
"He was trying to pacify the people with a lot of frustrations and make them not take action against the non-Kikuyu," he said and denied any knowledge of plans to attack the non-kikuyu.
"After that Uhuru asked me to go round the constituency ensuring everything was peaceful,"
He said more tension was reported at Zambezi near the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, which hosts many non-Kikuyu.
Some youth smeared themselves with animal blood in a bid to heighten the tension, by claiming their relatives had been attacked by non-Kikuyu, he explained.
He said after that initial peace campaign, the MPs decided to discuss the issue with other leaders from other parties.
He got in torch with MPs Richard Onyonka, Eugene Wamalwa and others and they organised the meeting at Parliament attended by about 12 MPs.
Peace campaign
Nguyai said as the situation worsened several MPs from various political parties met at Parliament and agreed to embark on peace campaign meetings in the parts of Kikuyu and Limuru.
He also told the court that he received threats and extortion texts from witness 12 demanding Sh3million.
He said, in defence of Uhuru Kenyatta, that the witness demanded the cash to exonerate the Deputy Prime Minister from the alleged involvement in the post poll chaos.
He said the witness started by sending texts in a bid to secure payment, and then later called using anonymous numbers.
"When the witness exhausted all the channels he appeared at the reception of my office and said he had a ‘hot envelope’ and that it had a ‘deadline’," he said.
Nguyai said the witness asked him to pass the message to Uhuru so that the payment of the cash is fast tracked.
He said the last text message he received from another witness, 11, was Friday last week.
"They tried to obtain the Sh3 million from me," he said.
Nguyai, however, said he had not received any cash from Kenyatta.
He noted that another Member of Parliament received similar text messages and anonymous phone calls.
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