Gema’s tall order of finding region’s king

By WAINAINA NDUNG’U

The Gikuyu Embu and Meru Association was last Friday cast into the spotlight in what is likely to be its biggest headache since it was mooted more than 40 years ago.

Friday admission of the leadership crisis facing central Kenya because of the International Criminal Court (ICC) cloud hanging over presidential aspirant Uhuru Kenyatta is seen as Gema’s biggest challenge.

Bishop Lawi Imathiu with former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga at the Gema meeting. [PICTURE: JOHN MUCHUCHA/STANDARD]

The declaration at the Jumuiya Conference Centre is expected to attract admiration and scorn in equal measure.

Gema leaders had a day-long meeting at the birthplace of the independence party Kanu and its predecessor, the Kenya African Union, ostensibly to announce the political direction of the region after President Kibaki retires at the end of this year.

It is still doubtful whether Gema’s assertion that they would petition the ICC to postpone trial against Uhuru using the UN political system will be helpful to the politician’s ambition of becoming Kenya’s fourth president.

Some observers say Gema’s hard-line position may isolate Uhuru and set the ground for the ICC to issue arrest warrants at the next court appearance.

But some Gema insiders think the tribal-political posturing will assist the DPM and indeed the other three Kenyan ICC suspects in their cases. They say the message is a clear demonstration the country is headed for more polarisation ahead of transition General Election.

Close backers of the DPM argue that a message needs to be sent to the international community that they cannot afford to break one of Africa’s most stable democracies through what is "increasingly being seen as discriminative prosecutions at The Hague".

But that this campaign is being pushed by Gema is likely to also come with a silver lining granted that the association is seen as representative of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru elite, who cut their teeth during founding President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s tenure, suffered some nerve wrecking humiliation in the next regime before reappearing as strategic kingmakers in President Kibaki’s politically turbulent term.

A cross-section of Kikuyu politicians with their roots in Kiambu County launched Gema in the late 1960s when opposition to President Kenyatta’s rule peaked especially from Luo Nyanza following the 1966 falling out with his former ally and vice-president Jaramogi Odinga Oginga. The subsequent assassination of then Economic Planning minister and Kanu Secretary General Tom Mboya in 1969 worsened matters.

In the backlash that resulted from the two events, central Kenya elite, including Njenga Karume and former Nakuru North MP Kihika Kimani, former Defence Minister Njoroge Mungai, former State Minister Mbiyu Koinange, and the president’s nephew Ngengi Muigai felt there was need for a central association bringing together the fractious Kikuyu. Gema was officially registered in 1971, with an economic arm called Gema Holdings that soon set out to acquire vast real estate, including an expansive farm at Kasarani and plots in the Nairobi Central Business District.

Virtually every other senior civil service and parastatal head from the region subscribed to Gema and President Kenyatta is said to have specifically ordered a hesitant Attorney General Charles Njonjo to immediately register the association that also enjoyed the patronage of Lands Minister Jackson Harvester Angaine who exercised considerable sway among the Meru.

Others supporting the association included minister Jeremiah Nyagah, who was strategic in mobilising the Embu.

Gema is accused of playing a prominent role in mobilising the community support in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period characterised by massive oathing throughout central Kenya for members to remain loyal to the Kenyatta regime.

But being comprised of mostly educated and sophisticated elite, the association was, however, careful to front an image of disinterest in the illegal and divisive activity.

With the Luo threat dissolved and most members toeing the line, Gema soon found its next target.

Almost clocking ten years in the vice presidency, Daniel arap Moi was supposedly seen as a soft target for the hard-line Gema, which having gone through the tougher motions of diffusing Jaramogi, Mboya and JM.

But Njonjo, who was to be a hard nut to crack, in 1976 warned Gema heavyweights he would not hesitate to open treason charges against them for imagining the death of the president Kenyatta.

The warning ended countrywide tours organised by Kihika, Mungai, Karume, Ngengi, and others who had been pushing a ‘Change the Constitution’ crusade to bar Moi from ascending to the presidency in the event of Kenyatta’s death.

When Mzee Kenyatta died in his sleep in 1978, Njonjo convened a Cabinet meeting in which Gema kingpins such as Koinange, Mungai, and Angaine had to watch their dream of retaining the presidency dissipate.

With the death of JM Kariuki and the scaring of Mwai Kibaki from the Kenyatta succession yarn around 1976, Gema insiders’ vow of preventing the presidential standard from crossing River Chania had sort of come to pass as President Moi took over the reigns of power.

In 2003, the surviving Gema kingpins watched in horror as this vow was shattered and President Kibaki ascended to power in a competitive, but peaceful transition.

Moi had formally banned Gema in 1980 together with a plethora of tribal cocoons that run, among others, football teams.

Like the Abaluhya Football Club which metamorphosed into AFC Leopards or the Luo Union, which was renamed Re-Union, Gema, the elite financial club continued to function as Agricultural and Industrial Holdings Ltd among its properties being the Clay Works Factory on Thika Road and the surrounding ranch.

This ranch has since been subdivided into plots and is now home to the fledging middle class Clay Works Estate straddling the Kasarani-Mwiki Road and Thika Road.

Like the proverbial family hut in a Gikuyu compound, smoke rises from the thick chimneys at Clay Works Ltd daily.

The brick-making factory remains Gema Holding’s principal investment although now largely outpaced by Clay Products Ltd, the Kenyatta family competitor five kilometres away on Thika Road.

Gema’s current chairman is retired Methodist bishop Lawi Imathiu. Some of its leaders from the old block include Ngengi Muigai and the former Central Bank of Kenya governor Duncan Ndegwa.

A former central Kenya MP describes Gema as comprising the most influential regional kingmakers. Whether it will have an international sway to save Uhuru’s skin at ICC, only time will tell.