The Mt Kenya Times 
Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro
By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga
Worth Noting:
- In his speech, Ndindi steered clear of succession politics. The talk is premature and ill-timed. This is the time of helping our beloved President and his deputy to succeed in their job of transforming the lives of Kenyans.
- Ndindi’s change of tack was well understood. It came hot on the heels of a meeting he had hosted in Kiharu constituency. It was attended by 20 members of parliament drawn from different parts of country.
- Most of the speakers endorsed Ndindi as the best suited to replace former President Uhuru Kenyatta as the kingpin of Mountain and also to succeed President William Ruto in 2032.
As a writer and political analyst, I have been following the unfolding supremacy battle for Mount Kenya kingpin.
For now, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro are the leading contenders.
The duo hails from the Mount Kenya West and so many are waiting to see whether a leader from East will also throw the hat in the ring.
Ndindi have in the last few days changed his political strategy.
To me, this is a tactical retreat. It does not mean backing down as his critics want Kenyans to believe.
Speaking when he was hosted by the leaders from Northern Kenya, Rift Valley and Nyanza, the Kiharu MP stated that his loyalty to President William Ruto and his deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was unquestionable.
As their worker, my job is to help them implement the pledges they made to Kenyans during the campaigns.
In Luo Nyanza where he was accompanied by local leaders and MP Babu Owino, Ndindi reiterated the commitment of President Ruto to develop all regions of Kenya.
All of us pay taxes and so we are entitled to development goodies.
Speaker after speaker showered Ndindi Nyoro with accolades.
Ndindi is youthful, development conscious and well educated on matters of good governance and social rights. He also believes in peace and unity. Therefore, he is a presidential material.
In his speech, Ndindi steered clear of succession politics. The talk is premature and ill-timed. This is the time of helping our beloved President and his deputy to succeed in their job of transforming the lives of Kenyans.
Ndindi’s change of tack was well understood. It came hot on the heels of a meeting he had hosted in Kiharu constituency. It was attended by 20 members of parliament drawn from different parts of country.
Most of the speakers endorsed Ndindi as the best suited to replace former President Uhuru Kenyatta as the kingpin of Mountain and also to succeed President William Ruto in 2032.
As it turned out, this meeting rattled the deputy President Gachagua.
The DP troops did not wait for the dust to settle. They accused Ndindi of working at the behest of powerful forces out to cut Gachagua to size.
Though they would not provide evidence to support their claims, media reports indicated that the DP opted to escalate this matter to State House.
Reportedly, this what prompted the President to wade into the succession battle pitting him and Kiharu MP.
My government promised to mentor youthful leaders. We have not changed but I want to caution young leaders not to engage in activities that could jeopardize our development agenda.
Before Ndindi changed the tack, I had a chat with a friend of mine. This is what he told me. You cannot stop an idea whose time has come.
Ndindi have a track record of development, reconciling and uniting the people.
DP Gachagua is the opposite of this. He was known to be vengeful, divisive and deceitful politician.
This explains why he is yet to deliver on the job of addressing the plight of farmers in Mount Kenya and other parts of the country. From onset, the DP had curved a niche of being a staunch defender of coffee, tea and milk farmers.
He had also convinced the President that he had what it takes to eradicate the menace of illicit brews and drug abuse once and for all.
But more than one year down line, he has not done anything to talk about.
For the farmers, they are still toiling and getting nothing in return. He had given them a false hope that they will start to put money into their pockets immediately.
Given this background, Ndindi seems to be the most favored candidate for position of Mount Kenya kingpin.
My friend added: We expect the duo to borrow a leaf from the late Kenneth Matiba who said in the countdown to 1992 general elections ‘let the people decide’.
This means the people of Mount Kenya will choose candidate.
If it is Gachagua, then he will retain his position as Dr Ruto’s running mate. If Ndindi defeats him, he will replace him.
Matiba had made the popular quote in the eve of 1992 general elections during a mammoth campaign rallies in Kiambu district.
This tour shocked Democratic Party (DP) leader Mwai Kibaki, who had taken his campaign there a week earlier. This is because all the gains he had made were watered down.
This is where Matiba branded Kibaki as ‘general Kiguoya (coward )’ amid cheers, ululations from mammoth crowds.
We wanted Kibaki to resign when he was demoted by President Moi from position of the Vice President to that of the Ministry of Health that had been run down.
He had agreed to do so. This is after a series of the secret meetings with other leaders from across the country who believed that Moi was taking the country in wrong direction.
Kibaki however betrayed us on the floor of parliament. He declined to second a motion of confidence against President Moi which I had just presented.
This was a great betrayal. I become a marked man. I was put on the radar by state security agencies and I ended up in detention, Matiba declared.
The ‘let the people decide’ clarion call resonated very well with the masses not only in Mount Kenya region but Kenya as a whole.
I remember the famous words of former powerful Attorney General the late Charles Njonjo. He once said that politics is a dirty game.
You may think that today you are very powerful but you never know what will happen tomorrow.
Njonjo uttered these words after falling out with President Daniel Arap Moi.
He never thought that this can happen. This is because he was a close ally and confidant of President Moi.
Former Vice President Josphat Karanja had also suffered fate. After Moi fell out with his Vice President Mwai Kibaki, he pointed Doctor Karanja to this position.
Karanja stayed in office for less than one year. It is worth to note the political plot to hound him out of office had crafted by two lightweight politicians-Embakasi MP David Mwenje and the head of Motor Vehicle Inspection Unit Kuria Kanyingi. Just like DP Gachagua, he had downplayed the threat posed by the duo. President Moi replaced Karanja with the late Professor George Saitoti.
The name of President Moi was dragged into this matter. However, there was no tangible evidence that he was behind this plot or rather sponsored it.
Former secretary general of KNUT Wilson Sosian who was among the leaders hosted by Ndindi in Kiharu, stated. I want to assure you the people of Muranga that Ndindi was poised to succeed President Ruto in 2032 when he completes his second term in office. You can take this to the bank.
Soon after this event, a section of the politicians allied to DP started peddling unfounded rumors that President William Ruto was sponsoring Ndindi’s campaigns. They would not produce an iota of evidence to support their claims.
This is not the first time that the name of the head of state would dragged into premature 2032 succession politics.
Sometimes back Kakamega senator Bonny Khalwale had made similar claims. This happened during Dr Ruto’s visit to the region.
He alleged that President Ruto had held a closed door meeting with the leaders of Mulembe nation at Kakamega State Lodge. We managed to convince him to support the candidature of ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi in 2032.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is not suitable for the position of the President. We want to tell him to forget it. President Ruto will pass the baton to Mudavadi, Khalwale added.
But in a swift rejoinder, Dr Ruto dismissed and denounced his remarks. It is premature and too early to talk about 2032 succession. We are here to launch and commission development projects. This is in line with promises we made during the campaigns.
I’m not holding brief for the President but I’m persuaded to believe that his position is the same. This is regard to Ndindi’s political game plan for the Mount Kenya region.
The DP should bear this in mind. Ndindi’s political star was rising very fast.
I have been listening to the views of the Kikuyus living in Githurai and in my rural area.
Majority of them do not believe in him. To drive the point home, they would revisit his previous utterances and history.
You heard him likening Kenya to shareholding company. This was a reckless statement. They would also fault him for picking a war with Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja. His statement was divisive, callous and designed to put the Kikuyus into a collision course with rest of the Kenyan communities.
This is because Nairobi is the home to all the 45 communities of Kenya.
Others would allege that Gachagua was only considering his home county of Nyeri for state appointments.
Some would recall the alleged ‘ills’ associated with him when he served as a ‘special’ District Officer (DO) during the era of President Daniel Arap Moi.
It is also worth noting that Gachagua was not the preferred choice of the majority of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) leaders from the Mountain for the position of the running mate. The final decision however lied with presidential candidate William Ruto. He settled on him.
Given this scenario, one would have expected Gachagua to immediately start healing the wounds after being sworn in as DP. It is widely believed that one year down the line he has failed to do this.
The Kikuyus opposed to him would aver that Kiharu MP Ndindi is the most suitable candidate to lead the Mountain.
Apart from being youthful and well educated, he is a development conscious leader and a unifier.
Besides, he has never been implicated in corruption or any other wrong-doing.
Ndindi’s track record of development in Kiharu is there for all to see.
The MPs and other elected leaders are travelling there for bench-marking.
The other day a renowned opinion poll firm rated him as the best performer in the country. This is on matters of development.
Matters of education are close to his heart. Ndindi have done a lot in terms of building new state-of-art classrooms and renovating the old ones.
He has also been spending part of money he receives from National Exchequer to build TVET colleges.
National Government-Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) is one of the kitties
In this, the NG-CDF funds will cater for the school fees of the students in day schools in Kiharu. The parents will only pay Sh1,000 per term.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga Is A Writer And Political Analyst Based In Nairobi
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