Inside Uhuru Sagana meeting with MCAs, MPs

In the first of four days of meetings in the region, Uhuru tells local leaders they have a reason to support the BBI and says he will have a say on his succession.

President Uhuru Kenyatta yesterday started his four-day pitch for the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) by offering a sweetener that could change the tide for the constitutional reform moment.

The president acceded to demands by MCAs to be given car grants, adding that the same would be given to all ward representatives across the country.

Uhuru also stated that although he would be retiring, he would still have a say in the political scene.

“I will still sit in the negotiation table to ensure that our region is not taken lightly,” he said during a meeting with the leaders at Sagana State Lodge.

At the same time, Uhuru pleaded with Mt Kenya leaders to delink his succession politics from the BBI process, saying, “I have never said I will support or not support someone (to succeed me) so I wonder why all the hullaballoo.”

“I never said we shall elect so and so. I only said we shall support whoever was more popular than the others and I said we should widen our circle of friends so that we are safe, whoever is in power,” he said.

Unlike before when the president read the riot act to the local leaders, yesterday he appeared reconciliatory, telling his allies “not to bother answering what the other people are saying”.

He said he was not bothered with what was being said, pleading with the MPs and MCAs to educate the residents on the fruits of the BBI.

The MPs who attended the afternoon session described it as one of the most conducive engagements they have had with the president.

“It was a very friendly affair, with the president using persuasion to drive his point home and with this momentum, I’m sure BBI would sail through in the region,” an MP who attended the meeting said.

In his meeting with MPs whose number those inside put at just over 50, Uhuru was more conciliatory, telling his allies to let those differing with him to take their preferred positions.

“It is the people who will vote and not the MPs,” he said.

He also told Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu not to fight those insulting him, saying acrimony was unnecessary.

The president urged the legislators to pass the BBI in its present form, saying any anomalies can be taken care of in future changes.

Uhuru also pledged some changes to county boundaries to address historical injustices.

Only National Assembly Majority Leader Amos Kimunya gave a short address in this session.

The president is, however, said to have taken a swipe at local leaders who had been unable to execute jobs he had bestowed on them, citing the earlier paralysis in the Agriculture ministry which he was happy has since been resolved.

Like in the earlier address to MCAs, he pledged to be the champion of the region, even in retirement. In the morning session, the MCAs had become unruly before the president arrived.

After a tense standoff, the president appeared for a brief 35-minute speech in which he started with a series of threats, appeals and persuasions on why no Mt Kenya leader should even think about opposing the BBI.

The Mt Kenya MCAs had in a memorandum sent earlier asked for Sh2 million car grants and an upgrade of their salaries, besides other demands such as strengthening of the Ward Development Fund.

They interrupted a morning presentation by legal expert Tom Macharia on why Mt Kenya should support BBI to demand for the car grants.

Sources in the meeting said after the MCAs threatened to bury the presentation in shouts and boos, Interior PS Karanja Kibicho and State House operative Andrew Wakahiu intervened and went into a session with speakers Joseph Kaguchia (Nyeri) and Stephen Ndicho (Kiambu) plus a few majority leaders, including Meru’s Victor Kariithi, to negotiate a settlement.

This party only returned when the president made his entry and, after the national anthem and prayers, got straight into his speech.

After acceding to the car grants for all Kenyan MCAs, the president declined to promise change of other terms, saying that could only be granted by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).

“Because I hate lying, I can only promise that we shall support you in those deliberations,” said Uhuru.

He urged MCAs to reject being swayed through corruptly acquired resources, saying no “right thinking MCA from Mount Kenya could oppose BBI”.

The president made his address throughout in Gikuyu as approved by the delegates at the start.

He asked the delegates representing highly populated constituencies to demonstrate how they were disadvantaged by the skewed distribution of electoral constituencies in the country.

The MCAs, who spoke, including those for Kikuyu Township, Kanunga in Kiambu, Kamenu in Thika, Nkuene in Meru and Ndumberi in Kiambu, said they were badly incapacitated because of huge populations that enabled them to offer bursaries of just Sh2,000 to Sh5,000 a year.

“Do you know there are areas that give bursaries of up to Sh100,000 a year? What type of fairness is this?” the president posed.

He then launched into a diatribe against those opposing the BBI in the region, saying it was unbelievable they could not read through the injustice.

The president blamed these opposed to the BBI in the region of being influenced by ill-gotten wealth, saying the region should debunk the myth of creation of an expensive bureaucracy, adding it was incomparable to what was being lost through graft.

“They are coming back to invite you through giving back a few coins and I want to ask you to see through this scam,” said the president.

He also criticised the hustlers versus dynasties narrative, saying he had not heard of the same when the nation rallied to help the 2008 post-election violence victims or during the International Criminal Court (ICC) troubles against him, Deputy President William Ruto and four other Kenyans.

Promising to be more straight forward today when he faces a larger group comprising religious, social and political leaders as well as matatu operators and traders from the region, Uhuru told those thinking he would not have a say in retirement to brace for surprises.

He told the camp led by his deputy to realise that development could only come from hard work and not through pronouncements over sunroofs of government vehicles.

State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena announced earlier that Uhuru would be in Sagana for four days during which he would meet various delegations and inspect development projects in the region.

Dena said Uhuru is also grateful for parents for taking children back to school after months of lockdown due to Covid-19.

She also said the president was committed to seeing all pregnant children returned to school to complete their studies but was saddened by the upsurge in school unrest and fires.