At the stroke of midnight of a cold November night last year, the iconic Jamaican reggae group Wailing Souls burst on stage at KICC Grounds in Nairobi with their signature tune “Jah Give Us Life.”
From the hazy blues of the night, a lanky wide-grinned man bolted from the crowd, his right fist aloft and dangerously surged to the front, literally wailing to the reggae beats.
“The light struck the night, and the morning come.. so I’ve got to stay awake to meet the rising sun..” the reggae duo sang as the frenzy caught up with the crowds.
The man, Kang’ata Irungu, Kiharu MP, had joined fellow Rastafarian zealots at the venue as early as 6pm to “chant down Babylon.”
“Too much injustice is upon the land, yet the Rastaman, he makes no plan,” he sang along the Wailing Souls as he gestured to this writer, drawing him to inaction of the many against the conniving few.
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That night and under the prying moon and spell of reggae music in the background, he unfurled to this writer his grand plan to unseat the Deputy Speaker of the Senate, the grey-haired Kembi Gitura, as the Murang’a representative.
He had had enough as Kiharu MP for five years and was daring to take the battle against injustice to the upper house, the Senate.
Minor scuffle
As a first-timer in Parliament, the easy-going Kang’ata was no match for the widely-decorated Gitura who cuts the image of a typical Senator as an ex-MP, ex-ambassador, ex-administrator and public official.
Straight from campus, he had barely practised law for five years when he romped in as Kiharu MP aged 34. He floored Gitura in the Jubilee primaries.
“In all my fights, I have always looked at myself as the Biblical Paul. So long as the fight is justified, I always approach it with a sling, a stone and strong conviction of victory. Every other day in my life, I walk in the valley of Elah where David took on Goliath and floored him,” the strongly-opinionated Irungu tells Sunday Standard.
With a tinge of pride, twitching his neck and reminiscing from the Book of Samuel, he adds: “People must know there is God who fights for the underdogs. All we need to do is to arm ourselves with strong conviction that victory is our birthright and go for what we want.”
In 2012, Kang’ata scored a first when he floored the country’s first Deputy Chief Justice Nancy Baraza following a minor scuffle with a guard Rebecca Kerubo. Representing Kerubo, the young lawyer stretched the matter to its limits forcing the DCJ to resign.
When he announced his bid for Senate, many people in Murang’a wished him away. The MP did not have resources to traverse the county’s seven constituencies.
He had not been endorsed by the county’s wealthy power-brokers and he scored poorly in name-recognition across the county compared to the deputy speaker.
In contrast, Gitura as the incumbent and riding on his Deputy Speaker Status had all the chances. He not only had a name across the county but also the Central region. He had the provincial administration by his whim and command by virtue of being the third top government official in Central Kenya after President Uhuru Kenyatta and Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi.
“Many people openly told me it was a reckless gamble and that I should stick to the Kiharu race where I stood 99 per cent chance of re-election owing to my performance. They said having been a vocal MP and having won accolades on good management of county funds, I was better off defending my seat,” he says.
Kang’ata was undeterred in his resolve to go to the Senate principally to defend and expand devolution.
“I have never lost a political contest. When I was a fresher at the university at 19, I won the SONU Vice-Chair elections. When I was expelled from the university at the age of 22, I vied as a Councilor against tycoons and won over them. And when at 32 I went for MP, I floored many, including a wealthy stock-broker Ngenye Kariuki,” he says with a chuckle.
To defeat the Deputy Speaker, Kang’ata says he employed “scorch-earth mobilisation tactics” of criss-crossing every constituency, enlisting services of popular Kikuyu gospel artistes and establishing an under-ground network of supporters under the slogan “Ni Kenyatta na Kang’ata.”
His message was also tailored to sway the masses to his side. He would cite his legislative work in fighting for coffee and tea farmers rights and vow to escalate the same in the upper house.
Further, his simple personality sold his bid - easy to mingle, simple car, unpretentious dressing and simple language.
When the vote was called, Kang’ata floored the deputy speaker in four of the seven constituencies in the county. He easily took away his home constituency of Kiharu and scooped victories in neighbouring Mathioya, Kangema and Kigumo.
Gitura on the other hand won in Kandara, Gatanga and Maragua. He says ascendancy to the Senate in August will not change him: “I will remain constant as the northern star. You will not see me swarmed by bodyguards, aides and cruising on those fuel guzzlers my colleagues use. That’s just not me,” he says.
As he signs off the small chat, he quotes one of the songs of his favourite reggae music great Bob Marley: “Where is the use you live big today and tomorrow you are buried in a casket?”
