Sharp divisions rock council as coastal Kaya elders turn focus on 2017

Kaya council of elder Chairman Charo Menza (right seated) with Kilifi North Mp Gideon Mung'aro (centre) and Kilifi south member of parliament, Mustafa Iddi during a press briefing in Mombasa. While two factions of the Mijikenda elders insist they have a crucial role in determining the community’s next political leadership, a third group says Kaya’s roles are limited to cultural matters. (PHOTO: OMONDI ONYANGO/ STANDARD)

With slightly over a year to the 2017 General Election, Kaya elders are sharply divided over their role in annointing candidates for political office.

While two factions of the Mijikenda elders insist they have a crucial role in determining the community’s next political leadership, a third group says Kaya’s roles are limited to cultural matters.

Officials of the Mijikenda Community Council of Elders Association (Mijicea) and Malindi District Cultural Association (Madca) say they will play a crucial role in the next elections and will vet candidates for political office and install community spokespersons.

But the Kaya Council of Elders is accusing them of being “cunning impostors and guns for hire in the service of politicians”.

Its chairman Abdalla Ali Mnyenze says the elders’ role is to guide the community on cultural matters and offer prayers to ward off calamities such as lack of rains, disease outbreak and conflicts. Its political role, he said, is restricted to blessing various leaders without necessarily joining them on the campaign trail.

“The Kaya institution has been infiltrated by people out for hire by politicians. This has created the wrong impression of who we are. As elders, we do not back Jubilee, CORD or any other political group. We are neutral and only play the role of reconciling political leaders from the region so that they can serve the community,” Mnyenze said.

Regional vetting

But Mijcea Secretary General Vincent Mwachiro, who is known to be close to Kilifi MP Gideon Mung’aro, said his group is free to engage in politics and even anoint politicians.

“We have united with Madca and we will invite aspirants for various political seats for vetting. We will even campaign for those who emerge tops. Candidates must adhere to our conditions, which include contesting on a party with roots at the Coast. We are going to give political direction to the community as we forge unity and chart the destiny of the Coast region,” Mwachiro said.

Mijcea and Madca have confirmed they are working closely with ODM rebels led by Mung’aro, whom they are set to anoint as community spokesman on September 9. The two groups say they selected 4,000 people to vet those interested in becoming MCA, MP, Woman Representative, Senator or Governor in the region’s 85 electoral wards.

Mwachiro dismissed Mnyenze’s claims that the elders’ roles are restricted to cultural matters, saying traditional institutions like the Kayas were in Ghana, Uganda, Benin and Nigeria where elders guide their communities in all aspects of life including politics. Mwachiro said Mijicea will work with the Jubilee government in a region highly regarded as an opposition stronghold, and will be naming Kwale Woman Representative Zainab Chidzuga as Mung’aro’s deputy.

Mrs Chidzuga later confirmed that politicians in the Mung’aro camp are working with the Kaya elders to advance the region’s agenda.

Mijicea recently announced it will support the government. “We will launch campaigns in August and we will start with Tana River County then head to other counties in the region to sensitise locals to join and support the current government because we have realised that we have not benefited from being in the opposition,” Mwachiro said after meeting the Mung’aro team in Mombasa.

He said aspirants who agree to the elders’ conditions would have to give back 30 per cent of their salary  to the community once elected.

Defending the decision to engage in politics, Madca Secretary General Joseph Karisa Mwarandu said Kaya elders historically ran traditional governments before their administrations were crashed by the colonial government.

“The Mijikenda used to have a rank called Gohu who played religious and legislative roles while the Vaya were administrators who executed policy.

These traditional governments were strangled by the colonial government because they appeared to compete with the foreign authority.

We have evidence of 200 Gohu elders who were rounded up and burnt beyond recognition by the British at Katangani in Ganze,”  Mwarandu, a prominent Malindi lawyer, said.

Mwarandu claimed Madca reviewed the role of Kaya elders 10 years ago to ensure they set the region’s political agenda by vetting and backing successful candidates and ensuring they serve the interests of the community.

Sacred forests

He said senior politicians in Kilifi, including Governor Amason Kingi, Woman Representative Aisha Jumwa and Mung’aro have on different occasions called on the elders to issue statements in their defence. Mwarandu backed the plan to install Mung’aro as Mijikenda community spokesman, saying his group had invited Kingi for anointment before he was sworn in as governor in 2013 but he declined.

“Our group later anointed Ganze MP Peter Shehe as both Gohu and Mijikenda spokesman but he has since become inactive leaving us with no option but to go for Mung’aro,” he said.

Mwarandu also explained that Madca prepared a document to guide the vetting of political aspirants way back in 2013, but the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) quickly took most Kaya elders for a workshop making it difficult to involve them in the exercise.

“Because of this hitch, vetting of aspirants only begun during the March by-election in Malindi where nine aspirants came forward.

We settled for Philip Charo but he later joined Jubilee against our wish as we had advised him to take a ticket from a party with roots in Coast,” Mwarandu said.

Mzee Mnyenze’s group is regarded as custodians of the sacred forests (kayas) which house an altar with a “potent” charm known as fingo and a graveyard of ancestors where prayers are said by anointed men and women.

According to Mzee Mnyenze, the Kaya institution retains Mijikenda traditions and one can become an elder regardless of religious inclination.

To become a kaya elder, one has to be installed by senior members of the institution upon offering a black he-goat and a black hen, castrol oil and several pieces of black cloth among other items as well as Sh2,000.

Alternatively, one can inherit the position of kaya elder from the clan or family men.

Only members of the Mijikenda community can be anointed into the kayas and get ranks.