Threat to expose terror financiers haunts Aden Duale

For Ruto's debut Cabinet, it seems the pact is holding firm with Duale getting to head one of the most strategic dockets in the country.

Born June 15, 1967 in a constituency formerly called Dujis in Garissa, Duale was first elected to Parliament on an Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) ticket where Ruto, his political ally Raila Odinga and a wide galaxy of current top political players had converged after handing former President Mwai Kibaki the 2005 constitutional referendum shock defeat.

Duale was appointed an Assistant Minister of Livestock Development in the Grand Coalition government formed after the disputed 2007 elections and proved a useful defender in Ruto's corner.

But it was after the 2013 UhuRuto election win when he would emerge into the limelight as a national figure after he was picked as the National Assembly Majority Leader following his reelection as MP for the renamed Garissa Township constituency on Ruto's United Republic Party (URP) ticket.

As Majority Leader, he worked overtime pushing government legislation and making provocative speeches to the ire of the opposition benches in Parliament. He will be remembered for pushing the passage of the Security (Amendment) Bill early in the Jubilee term.

Duale's office remained the epicentre of government lobbying in Parliament and he is still credited for successfully doing a hatchet job for Jubilee which for the first term grumbled on how business was being driven by the equivalent office in Senate so much that in the second term, Tharaka Nithi's Prof Kithure Kindiki had to take up the Deputy Speaker's position as Majority Leader position went to Kipchumba Murkomen.

Ironically, the two Ruto allies now find themselves nominated in his first cabinet. Duale lost his influential National Assembly seat during the 2019 purge by former President Uhuru Kenyatta on Ruto's allies. But then he had undergone many storms including claims in Parliament implicating some of his party MPs in bribing colleagues within the House's restrooms.

His most unguarded comment and which might come up during his vetting is when he promised to reveal the financiers behind Al Shabaab shortly after the deadliest terrorist attack on Kenyan soil during the Jubilee reign.

His outburst had happened after the April 2, 2015 attack where terrorists stormed Garissa University College killing 148 people among them students and injuring another 80 in a night of terror. The gunmen had taken over 700 students hostage before the Kenya military restored order and captured some suspects.

Duale's promise has never been fulfilled to date despite regular prodding by many angry Kenyans and insinuations that the killers had slept in a well-known Garissa hotel on the day of the attack.

The Garissa township MP had also earlier been one of the most outspoken opponents of a Kibaki era strategy to covertly train over 4,000 Somalis (mainly from Somalia but also from local Somali inhabited counties of Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Isiolo and Marsabit) to combat the growing terrorism threat from across the border. That was before Kenya sent its military to Somalia.

Duale will now find himself having the grapple with the question of Kenya's military excursion in Somalia including if and when it will be ended.

Duale nevertheless fits in comfortable shoes if and when he is confirmed as CS. His father-in-law General (Rtd) Mohamed Mohamud was the Kenya Army Commander who helped quell the 1982 coup attempt against the government of Daniel Arap Moi and for which he would later be rewarded with appointment as Chief of General Staff to succeed General Jackson Mulinge upon retirement.