Will Mwangaza see light at the end of tunnel this time round after ouster ?

Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza. [File, Standard]

Marginalised for his extortion, the only company Zacchaeus could keep was with the birds, making a hobby of climbing trees.

That was until the ever-benevolent prophet that was promised welcomed himself to a feast at Zacchaeus' home on the evening he urged the tax collector to climb down the sycamore tree.

That story, ladies and gentlemen, is perhaps the earliest record of a "broad-based" arrangement, bringing together a sinner and the Son of God despite cries by the holier-than-thou Jerichans.

Two thousand years later, that broad-based spirit lives on. Just not in Meru, where brothers and sisters refuse to dine together.

Well, the sister, besieged Governor Kawira Mwangaza, insists there is no food to be shared among the county's officials.

And, according to her, it is for that reason that Members of the County Assembly want to dim her light.

This past week, she who was born to work, as her name, 'Kawira', suggests, came a step closer to unemployment. MCAs, the term for glorified councillors, impeached her a third time.

Those in the know say her sins include inflating the donations meant for the burial of a murdered blogger, Daniel Muthiani alias Sniper. Kawira's accusers say she claimed Sh86 million was raised against donations of Sh286,500.

Another transgression is the usual abuse of office, where the governor is accused of allegedly paying irregular allowances to medical personnel, among other sins.

Like Gen-Z protesters, whose prayers are seemingly answered elsewhere, striking medics should perhaps camp outside Kawira's office instead of spending nights outside Mafia House. Who knows when the 'irregular' payment is due?

Such faults seem too small to have ward representatives chant "Kawira must go", but there are those who have paid heavier prices for much less. Nearly 60 young Kenyans have recently lost their voices forever for shouting "must go" chants too loud. For rubbing toothpaste beneath their eyelids.

While most MCAs voted to impeach Kawira, others warned that it was an exercise in futility, citing the clichéd expression - foolishness is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Indeed, they have been here before and know how it ends—a save by the Senate and a reprimand for escalating issues that should have been solved nyuma ya tent.

President William Ruto had futilely asked the governor and MCAs to talk their issues out, with the high court recently tasking the Njuri Ncheke supreme  council of elders  to intervene to no avail.

Twice MCAs have tried to oust their governor. Twice they have failed. The first time they impeached Kawira, months into her election, it was because she had reportedly operationalised the office of the first gentleman.

The MCAs accused her of granting Murega Baichu, her husband, an office at the county headquarters. None had sought to confirm the allegations, sparked when a passerby reportedly heard a guitar strum from one of the offices that wasn't Kawira's.

She would play the gender card before a Senate committee in December 2022, even as she blamed her woes on her firm stance against corruption. MCAs, Kawira had argued, wanted some "tea" to keep them warm in the Meru cold and distract them from the intrusive thoughts of impeaching their beloved governor.

Kawira had no issues sharing a cup with her enemies, only that she didn't favour making an off-the-books special arrangement that Zacchaeus made for the Saviour two millennia ago.
"I implore this house to make the ward fund legal to give me a framework to work with," she told senators.

She wept when the Senate saved her, declaring victory against her tormentors. The good senators had warned her to tame her tongue, a task that would seem impossible amid unrelenting foes, who allegedly insisted on the tea matter.

Others suggested that she keep his singer-husband hidden from the public. But it is a man's world where the governor hails from, and doing so would potentially cause her bigger problems.

And in a country where leadership is judged by the ability to keep a spouse, Kawira wouldn't risk suspicion that she and her sweetheart, Baichu, had fallen out.

How would she ditch a lover who had been by her side through it all? Baichu saw the mwangaza in her when no one else, besides her parents, did. He was with Kawira during her preaching days, supporting her rise to 'bishop' of her Baite Family Fellowship church.

They would later hawk vegetables together before graduating into hardware owners. And Baichu would be there to play his soothing guitar when she joined politics in 2013, failing in her first attempt at being a mheshimiwa. Kawira was luckier in 2017, bagging the woman representative position.

Five years later, she would trounce the "heavy hitters" in Kiraitu Murungi and Mithika Linturi. She had prophesied Kiraitu's downfall.

Too bad she didn't foresee her troubles, which has left many wondering: Is there light at the end of Mwangaza's tunnel?

Baichu's sweetheart finds herself impeached for the third time, the record for any governor, which is starting to sound like a bad joke, especially among senators, some of whom want Meru County, home of miraa and unbridled tempers, dissolved.