On Uhuru’s legacy, Mt Kenya MPs are the enemy within

The latest approach taken by Central Kenya leaders to raise and address regional grievances is most unfortunate and callous.

It is indeed true that Central Kenya has been getting a raw deal on a number of fronts, but the context and the timing these things are being raised is quite suspect and may not produce the positive results everyone is yearning for.

In the last few months, and fresh from hotly contested presidential elections - two in quick succession - a critical mass of the elected Central Kenya leaders abandoned their mandate to take up a new cause - 2022 succession.

Throwing all caution to the wind and ignoring the opportunity to get it right with their constituency, they elected to gallivant across the country selling their candidate for the 2022 general election. They disremembered that we have a sitting President for the next four years who has a legacy to build on.

In their 2022 frenzy, they dropped their oversight mandate like a hot potato, ignored their legislative and policy crafting power and completely went off-tangent in their political agenda setting role. Misguided, they isolated the President on an ill-advised assumption that he will turn a lame-duck.

The Senators among them have miscarried their counties oversight role. Take Nairobi for instance, the nerve centre of Central Kenya’s financial interests.

The once thriving City in the Sun is eclipsing in dusk as other less endowed counties rise up like a beautiful morning sun. Not one of them has raised a finger as Governor Mike Sonko turns one of Africa’s most promising cities into a rascal plaything.

Their counterparts in the National Assembly have refused to lend legislative hand to the President’s transformation agenda, leaving him and his administration to his wits and means.

His avowed fight against graft, one the country’s vilest and malignant vice, has received lukewarm support from the Central Kenya leaders. His idea of lifestyle audit which would rid the country of ill-gotten wealth and set it on a newfangled curve was fought from within his backyard.

To add salt to the injury, the Central Kenya leadership, in complete disrespect to the office of the President and well established protocols, decided to address the President through the media. They chose to embarrass him and essentially take the wind out of his sails.

And they know too well that this is not a new debate. Way back in 2015, we had begun formal discussions with the Presidency on the very issues they are now raising in public. The approach was orderly, quite different and quite promising in the full scope of time.

Just when the occasion is about to present itself to redress these and other wrongs, they want to soil it by setting up the regime. The biggest loser where the Central Kenya leadership chooses to battle with the regime rather than address the issues will be the common man.

Any politically prudent person can tell where this face-off will lead to. We will not allow the genuine grievances to take the route a small section of Central Kenya leaders, working in cahoots with outsiders, want it to take.

We will step in, pursue our regional grievances to a positive end, restore the dignity of the Office of the President, push counties to work for our people and allow President Kenyatta to deliver on his legacy. This is our duty.

Let no one think that they can distract the President from his focused mandate and get away with it. We will pursue them, expose them and discard them at the right time.

-The writer is former Dagoretti South MP and founder member of Jubilee Party.