By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA gmayaka@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, February 25 2012 at 22:30
Posted Saturday, February 25 2012 at 22:30
The thought of the bodies of Njenga Karume and John Michuki lying at the Lee Funeral Home is probably too painful to bear for President Kibaki, who has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the two agemates whom he has known for more than 60 years.
The twin deaths also complicate matters for Prime Minister Raila Odinga and one of his deputies, Kanu chairman Uhuru Kenyatta, who are caught up in an emotive fight to succeed President Kibaki.
While Mr Michuki was an indefatigable supporter of Mr Kenyatta, Mr Karume was among a group of wealthy and influential leaders from Central Province gravitating towards the Prime Minister’s 2012 campaign.
Coming from a region that has been traditionally resentful of him, Mr Odinga hoped to deploy Mr Karume who was recently crowned the Kikuyu spokesman at a controversial ceremony as his pointman in Central Kenya.
But of the three politicians — President Kibaki, Mr Odinga and Mr Kenyatta — it is the Head of State who would be forever indebted to the two octogenarians who have twice come to the rescue of his presidency.
Other than teaming up to form the Democratic Party (DP), Mr Karume would come to President Kibaki’s aid in 2004 when the government was facing a severe test following an acrimonious fallout with a group led by Mr Odinga, an act which threatened to bring down the Narc government.
Mr Karume joined the Government of National Unity as Special Programmes minister alongside Ford-People leader Simeon Nyachae.
The action stabilised the government and enabled President Kibaki to govern until the 2007 general elections.
And when Mr Odinga disputed President Kibaki’s re-election in 2008, it was Mr Michuki who led a team of PNU politicians to persuade ODM-Kenya’s Kalonzo Musyoka to join Kibaki’s vulnerable and weak government against an onslaught by the powerful Orange Democratic Movement which was determined to make the country ungovernable.
In his eulogy on Wednesday in Parliament, Transport minister Amos Kimunya spoke about Mr Michuki’s critical role at the height of the crisis.
“We worked tirelessly together with (Mr) Michuki and, indeed, one of the major achievements we did which was not known to people until he actually announced it during the (2010) referendum (campaigns) was working on the first coalition bringing together ODM-(K) (and President’s PNU),” he said.
The relationship between the departed politicians and President Kibaki stretches back to the 1940s for Mr Michuki and pre-independence days for Mr Karume, when Mr Kibaki was a young lecturer at Makerere University. In a recent interview on his ties with President Kibaki, Mr Karume recalled their first meeting.
While Mr Kibaki was teaching at Makerere, Mr Karume had partnered with Mr Charles Kigwe, an uncle of Mama Ngina Kenyatta, to open a beer distribution business.
It was during one of their frequent trips to the city that Mr Karume met the future President at African Corner on River Road, the only joint owned by an African. Mr Kibaki was on holiday from Kampala.
“They would drive to Mr Karume’s home in Kiambu whenever he had visited Nairobi. At that time, Mr Karume, just like the Asians, had converted his shop into his home.”
The friendship with Mr Michuki begun much earlier in 1947 when the two met at Mang’u High School in Thika.
Although the friendship between the three men has been tested by the rough and tumble of politics, the three families have remained close as demonstrated during yesterday’s two-hour visit to Mr Michuki’s home by the President.
On the day he died, the President’s son Jimmy said Mr Karume was “like a brother to the President”. (READ: Heavy personal loss for Kibaki)
“We are shocked beyond words. To lose John Michuki and Njenga Karume in the same week is almost too much sorrow to bear,” he said.
To his last days, Mr Michuki, the Environment minister, remained steadfastly behind Mr Kenyatta even as other senior politicians from his Murang’a backyard appeared to be wavering in their support.
Indeed, Mr Kenyatta was among the friends and relatives who escorted Mr Michuki’s body to Lee Funeral home on the night of his death.
Moreover, Mr Kenyatta, is a member of the committee that is organising the minister’s burial slated for Tuesday.
Further, Mr Kenyatta is said to have advised against political rallies by the G7 team which brings together Mr Kenyatta, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka and Eldoret North MP William Ruto planned for this weekend in honour of Mr Michuki.
His support for Mr Kenyatta was significant because Mr Michuki’s Murang’a County politicians have not always supported politicians from Kiambu, Mr Kenyatta’s home base.Last year, Mr Michuki declared his most emphatic endorsement of Mr Kenyatta as the “undisputed leader and spokesman” of the Kikuyu and effectively President Kibaki’s anointed successor.
It’s also noteworthy that Mr Michuki’s stand seemed to play against Mr Peter Kenneth, a Murang’a politician who has declared interest in the presidency.
Acknowledging that the death of the two leaders has robbed them of a close family friend, Mr Kenyatta’s camp yesterday remained optimistic that his campaign remains on track.
Mr Odinga has eulogised Mr Karume as a voice of reason and a leader who symbolised the aspirations of generations of Kenyans.
“We have lost a self-made man who remained a true example of what we can attain through sheer determination to beat poverty.”
Others in the Karume corner seen to support Mr Odinga are former attorney-general Charles Njonjo, Kiambaa MP Stanley Githunguri and businessmen Peter Kuguru and Peter Munga, the Equity Bank chairman.
This partly explains the anger that greeted Mr Karume’s last political move which saw him crowned Kikuyu spokesman.
Mr Kenyatta’s supporters poured scorn on the Karume act which they saw as an attempt to injure the Kanu chairman’s standing in the community.
Strong feeling
Besides, the anger is mainly driven by a strong feeling by Mr Kenyatta’s allies that the PM had engineered the prosecution of his deputy and four others at the International Criminal Court with aim of locking out them out of the presidential race.
But even with the deaths, there are those who hold the view that the two leaders had lost much of their political clout in their last days.
“They were influential leaders at different times in their careers, but I doubt if they still wielded much clout to influence the politics of Central Kenya and indeed the country,” said Prof Macharia Munene, a lecturer of International Relations at United States International University.
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