Uhuru warns leaders who divide Kikuyu

Wednesday, 30 March 2011 00:00 BY FRANCIS MUREITHI

THE organisers of the Muranga ceremony where Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta was installed as Kikuyu leader on Sunday say they they did not make him a king.
Before the installation Uhuru had warned that leaders who divide the Kikuyu that they will be flushed out and dealt with.“We should not be afraid to be called Kikuyus. All of us should follow our muthamaki (great leader) Kibaki. None of these leaders here would have made it to Parliament in 2007 if they did not support Kibaki. Now they pretend they made it to Parliament on their own. When Kibaki says something or shows the direction to follow, they are the first ones to contradict him. The first person to betray us to others is one of us. I want to tell all the leaders here that if any one of them fails to toe the line, they should know that their politics is over." "If Kibaki tells us to go to the left, we should do so, just like Ruto tells his people to go one way and they all do so. We will now allow ourselves to be killed just because we are not following our leaders. Those who fail to do this, we will follow them to their homes and expose them as the ones who are betraying us. We will say 'See, this person is the one who is failing to work with us'." “We have one disease, and that disease is the disease of loving ourselves, that we leaders do not listen to each other. When we vied in 2007, we stood by many parties. I even don’t know how many they were,” he said. “And that is why the ones we were competing with had the chance to claim that we stole the votes, because when votes were counted, Kibaki’s party did not have people because they had been scattered in other parties.”
Speaking in Kikuyu, Fr Gitonga who presided over the ceremony told the rally, “Now we are going to make Uhuru the King of the Kikuyu community and King of the entire country. We are going to give him this stick which has nine levels which signify the clans of the Kikuyu community." He used both the words muthamaki and kingi.
Yesterday Fr Gitonga told the Star, “I know I mentioned the word king during the ceremony but that was a mistake. Traditionally we did not have a king in the Kikuyu community but we made him an elder.” Retired priest Fr Joachim Gitonga is the chairman of the Kikuyu council of elders in Murang’a East district.
Murang’a is the home ground of Planning assistant minister Peter Kenneth, considered a potential rival to Uhuru. He was not at the ceremony because he was in Ikolomani campaigning for Bonny Khalwale in the upcoming by-election. Gitonga told the Star why Murang'a was chosen.“It is here in Murang’a that Jomo Kenyatta was chosen by the Kikuyu Association, who were Kikuyu elders then, to go to send the memorandum of independence, the land and education to Colonial Secretary and to the Prime Minister in 1929,” said Fr Gitonga.
Fr Gitonga said in 1962 when Kenyatta was released from prison, the then MP Kariuki wa Njiri stepped down in favour of Kenyatta who was declared MP for Kigumo which covered the entire Murang’a.“People had come all the way from all parts of Central including Meru to see Kenyatta declared the MP for Kigumo,” he said. “That is the history I am disclosing to Uhuru so that he remembers where President Kenyatta started,” he added.
Speaking in Kikuyu, Fr Gitonga told the rally, “We will also give him a stool, which is for sitting when he is presiding over cases, guiding the people and showing them what to do in the country."
Fr Gitonga was the founding Principal of the Murang'a College of Technology.Fr Gitonga said the elders picked Uhuru for his leadership qualities.“By giving him muthigi (long stick), it was very significant to the Kikuyu, I will compare it with the mace in Parliament,” said Fr Gitonga.“We gave him the cloth made from wild animal hide. This was worn by all Kikuyu elders and it is also a symbol of authority,” he said. He said the flywhisk handed to Uhuru was a traditional symbol of authority for keeping peace.