Return of Gema sends Project Kenya to another crowded waiting bench

The return of the Gikuyu, Embu, Meru, and Akamba (Gema) conglomeration into the public space this ended week casts a long shadow on Kenya’s lethargic efforts to manage ethnic diversity.

Significantly, too, the return captures the essence of Gema as a stubborn spirit that refuses to die. Tied up in the double knot, is the failure of Project Kenya, conceived at independence, and the deep ethnic fears and tensions that rule the country. 

Fears within Gema and outside speak to panic and foreboding ahead of the 2027 presidential elections. They bring back worrisome memories of the tragic 2007 presidential election and the violence that attended them.

Recent fallouts in the Kenya Kwanza government are part of the drivers of the fear on both sides of the political divide and their support base, as communities read betrayal on the political arena. 

Fuelled by the ongoing slipping away of the giant Mt Kenya voting bloc, fears abound in President William Ruto’s camp about the possibility of electoral defeat in 2027. To safeguard against this, Ruto has turned to West Kenya with narratives that closely mirror the 2007 mantra of “forty-one tribes against one.”  These narratives would hope to, once again, bring together and solidify the 2007 partners against Mt Kenya in 2027, as was the case in the tragic 2007. That lowly year is remembered as a season when mutually hostile Kenyans set their country on fire. 

For their part, the Gema communities fear for their diaspora in the Rift Valley. Conversations within these communities reveal a fear that the Gema diaspora within the country could experience deathly pogroms like those of 2007. The need for their ethnic solidarity in the circumstances was touted at a meeting in Nairobi in the ended week and is also contained in a little booklet titled Gema Cultural Association: Uniting and Integrating Communities. The exact intent of what should be done post-consolidation, however, remains unclear. Word in the street is that “This time we will not be caught unawares,” whatever the import. 

The entry of the Akamba into Gema introduces a new dimension to an organisation that was for decades seen as a Kikuyu outfit. The Embu and Meru were usually only seen as a supporting cast. The new formation in the organisation points to early efforts to constitute a formidable regional voting bloc ahead of the 2027 poll. It is instructive that it comes in the wake of the Rigathi Gachagua impeachment and attendant public displays of anger in the region towards the Ruto regime. 

Both Ruto and his appointment have faced turbulent political headwinds in the region these past two weeks. Ruto attended a religious function in Embu, to a reception of thorny thistles and stinging nettles. Separately, in Murang’a, a funeral congregation noisily refused to listen to readings of written tributes by the President’s emissary, as well as Deputy President Kithure Kindiki’s messenger. Both Ruto’s message and that of Prof Kindiki were handed to the bereaved family without being read.

The arrival of a revamped Gema could, accordingly, spell more trouble for Ruto and Kenya Kwanza in a region that was frenzied with him in 2022. It is at once a tale of the fickleness of ethnic political unions in Kenya on one hand and, on the other, the weak ideological glue and poor sense of purpose that holds them together. It also speaks to the post-election betrayals that pull them down.

Ethnic groups

The sponsors of the new Gema initiative, however, deny any political intentions, at least for now. The denials are moot, however. At the height of its past glory, Gema never pretended to be anything other than a chartered vehicle for exclusive commercial and political pursuits in the three Gema ethnicities of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru.  

Historian Charles Hornsby recalls the rise of Gema at a time when Kanu was in decline, after the turbulent activities of 1969–70, following the assassination of Tom Mboya.

In the volume titled Kenya: A History Since Independence, Hornsby remembers that “as Kanu declined, so a new organisation emerged, the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru Association (Gema), whose name was to become a shorthand for the commercial and political aspirations of the ethnic groups living around Mount Kenya.” 

Gema was formed in 1971 under the leadership of Julius Gikonyo Kiano. All incumbent MPs from the three communities assumed one level of leadership or the other in this new entity. The entity itself fell just short of a political party. This “political party” character became particularly evident when the association was reconstituted in 1973. President Jomo Kenyatta became the patron. Later day Kiamba MP Njenga Karume became the chairman. Other notables were the Central Bank Governor Duncan Ndegwa, who became the vice-chairman while Dickson Kihika Kimani, a quasi-literate land-buying magnate, became the organising secretary.

But if GEMA was unapologetically a tribal entity, it was not alone in those streets. Indeed, GEMA was a latecomer who jumped over the early starters. For, way ahead of its first formal registration in 1971, other tribal associations already existed in Kenya. Leading among these was the Luo Union, founded in the 1930s. Next was the Abaluhya Association, also founded before independence. There was also the Kalenjin Association, and the Mijikenda Association, both founded in colonial times. Mulu Mutisya, a man of modest learning, formed the New Akamba Union in 1961. But while these associations and unions coagulated around basic welfare issues among tribesmen, and while they involved themselves with sporting activities and funereal affairs, GEMA’s arrival after independence was a different ball game altogether. 

GEMA came in the garb of a revanchist entity. Like other revanchist formations in world history, GEMA was in the 1970s a community of angry people on a mission. They nursed deep-seated commercial and political grievances and sought to recover lost assets and opportunities. Never mind that some of the leaders already occupied very senior positions in the government, and in commerce. Their principal focus was on land, control of business, and management of power politics. The Mt Kenya people had been violently separated from their land through arbitrary alienation by the British colonial regime and before it the Imperial British East Africa Company.

This history continues to characterise public conversations on welfare matters among the GEMA populations. It also clouds the legitimacy of some of their grievances while (also) inviting other communities to be afraid and suspicious of them.  

The name GEMA sends cold shivers down the spines of non-GEMA persons because of the sheer superiority of voting numbers within GEMA tribes. Then there is the wealth of the bigwigs among them and their penchant for control of political power at the very top. Even without the coming of the Akamba on board, the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru are hard to beat. Apart from the dominant era of first-past-the-post simple-majority under KANU, it has been difficult to imagine an outright presidential electoral victory that does not include GEMA numbers. The three GEMA presidents – Jomo, Mwai Kibaki, and Uhuru, have ruled for a combined 35 of Kenya’s 61 years of independence. The admission of the Akamba into this formation complicates matters for their detractors.  

Never mind that the promoters of the New GEMA have distanced themselves from politics. The retired ACK Rev Canon Peter Karanja told the meeting at Nairobi’s All Saints Cathedral on Wednesday that the new formation is only interested in the social, cultural and economic welfare of the GEMA people. It is impossible, however, to separate politics from these three domains.

Canon Karanja, Eliud Nthiga and Arthur Namu, the promoters of the new GEMA, must know that the shortest route to the social and economic ends that their people crave is paved in politics. While they have not for now declared support for any one politician, therefore, it remains a matter of time before they overtly rally behind some political leader.

It is hardly conceivable that they will be rooting for anyone outside GEMA for President in 2027. The closest outsider in their telescope has been Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka. But Kalonzo’s Akamba people are now a part of GEMA, following admission in the ended week. It will be presumed that he is now one of the front runners for the GEMA ticket in 2027, with former Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe as the other key player.

Those in the know say that Kagwe is one solid individual, whom the region is looking up to as a possible aspirant in the usual tribal political horse-trading. Kalonzo has already thrown his hat in the ring. It is therefore going to be a matter of either Kalonzo or Kagwe from GEMA. Whoever it will be, they will set off with close to 40 per cent of the national presidential vote close to the basket, if not already bagged. With a little effort in the pockets of outsiders, lady luck could smile at them.

That is not all, however. their potential to perpetually dominate political power is real. So, too, is the fear of such domination among other Kenyans. This fear is neither idle nor without foundation.

In the 1970s, eminent GEMA leaders openly preached the need for Kikuyu dominance in Kenya. Njenga Karume, Matu Wamae, Dr Kiano, and even the urbane and mild-mannered Jeremiah Nyaggah of Embu, saw GEMA as the vehicle for the Jomo Kenyatta succession. The reputation of the ruling party, KANU, was then in decline, as a factor of neglect by the political centre around Kenyatta. The spinoff was the transformation of hitherto ethnic welfare associations to begin taking on the character of political platforms.

In this regard, Hornsby recalls, “GEMA was most powerful.” Vice President Daniel Arap Moi and his principal political friend at the time, Attorney-General Charles Njonjo, were restless about GEMA. They had, quite early in the day, begun nursing their own Kenyatta succession plans, far from those of other political giants in the country.

Collateral damage

As Kenyatta’s health steadily declined, GEMA stalwarts gained in fear that Moi and Njonjo might beat them to the game. So it was that GEMA’s Kihika Kimani led the infamous Change-the-Constitution chorus of 1976, seeking to derail Moi from succeeding Kenyatta, if Kenyatta died in office. Njonjo, however, outmanoeuvred them with his famous warning that it was treasonous to as much as “imagine” the death of the President. The debate ended and Moi succeeded Kenyatta in 1978. 

Njonjo and Moi, however, decided that they would put GEMA to rest once and for all when, in 1980, they proscribed all tribal organisations in the country. The real target was GEMA. It was expedient that it should go, even if in the process other entities also suffered as collateral damage. 

Hence it was that even football clubs, such as the Luo Union Football Club, Abaluhya United Football Club, and Abeingo changed their names to Reunion FC, AFC Leopards, and Nakuru Wanderers, in that order. Gor Mahia FC toyed with the name Gulf Olympic Rangers (to be abbreviated as GOR) but the National Olympic Committee ruled them out of order, stating that the Olympic tag was protected. Eventually, a special plea by Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Ouko led Moi to make an exception to the Gor Mahia name. The mission had been accomplished. 

Yet, in the never-say-die spirit, GEMA was soon reinvented as an active commercial entity, bearing the name Agricultural and Industrial Holdings Ltd. The company remains a going concern today, with assets and business interests that run into hundreds of billions of shillings, and possibly trillions. Hence, the emerging GEMA is a fresh incarnation of the effort to solidify the Mt Kenya communities around a purpose, with the Akamba as the new kids on the block. Their booklet that was circulated at the All Saints meeting speaks of lessons that the community took from the post-election violence of 2007/08. 

The writers state:

“During the 2007/2008 post-election violence that targeted the Gikuyu, Embu, and Meru as mobilised by the then Opposition, and feigned as spontaneous, the three communities found it necessary to support each other against the violence and profiling that led to the loss of more than 1,000 people and displacement of over 600,000, effectively making them internally displaced people (IDPs). This happened mainly in the Rift Valley, Nairobi, and Coast regions. This was not the first time. It had happened in 1991/1992 and in 1997.”

Questions linger

The writers say that the post-election violence “became a wakeup call for the communities, their leaders and business people to reorganize themselves to pull together.” It is instructive that the GEMA Cultural Association (GCA) was registered in April 2008, a few weeks after the formation of the Grand Coalition government of President Kibaki and Premier Raila Odinga.

“Since then, GCA has continued to influence the community and to offer direction at strategic moments,” the GEMA booklet says.

But even as GEMA regroups, many questions linger on.

What influence and direction does GEMA intend to give the community in the reemerging caustic ethnic-based politics? How can they help the internal diaspora, now that they don’t want “to be caught unprepared again”?

But the biggest question is why Project Kenya has failed, 61 years later. The answer would seem to reside in the unwillingness of successive presidents to end negative ethnicity.

From Jomo Kenyatta in 1963 to William Ruto today, State House has been rich in rhetoric against tribalism, and poor in doing what they preach. They brazenly fill up the public service and even minion opportunities with their tribesmen. 

On several occasions, the country has attempted to cross the valley of negative ethnicity only for the State House to reverse the gears. In 2002 Kenyans overwhelmingly voted for Mwai Kibaki, only for him to entrench a Mt Kenya hegemony in government. And when the Rift Valley voted for Uhuru, he borrowed the script from Kibaki. The Ruto example, however, beats all the rest, having learned from the best.

Return to GEMA and the politics of tribal associations is where the present regime has taken the country. Project Kenya will have to wait for another sheriff.