Kenyattas back in political realm as Ruto rouses Uhuru from retirement

President William Ruto and former President Uhuru Kenyatta during a church event in Embu County. [PCS]

President William Ruto and his predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta’s Ichaweri meeting sent a message that the Kenyatta family name remains in the country’s political realm.

Although none of the Kenyatta’s today holds a senior government position, the family name refuses to fizzle out of Kenya’s politics despite efforts by the Kenya Kwanza brigade during the 2022 presidential campaigns to obliterate it - the bile continued after ascending to power.

In the heat of the campaigns, the family’s name was dragged into viscous vitriol after its son, then President, Uhuru Kenyatta supported Raila Odinga, as opposed to his then deputy, now President, William Ruto.

Ruto’s Tanga Tanga faction, came up with a narrative that pitted his family background against the Kenyatta’s and the Odinga’s christening the whole narrative Hustlers versus Dynasty.

His clarion call was that a time had come for a son of a peasant to ascend to State House, urging Kenyans to reject Uhuru and his “puppet” Raila accusing the two families of oppressing Kenyans since independence.

Kenyatta’s family has never been under intense public scrutiny as it did in the last election and the post-election era after Ruto ascended to power.

Ruto and his now political enemy former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua accused the Kenyatta’s of political transgressions including disinheriting Mau Mau freedom fighters. 

After defeating Raila, considered a Uhuru project, Kenyatta’s name remained on lips of the winners from the swearing-in ceremony in Kasarani. 

Shortly after being sworn in as DP, Gachagua stood at the lectern and went gloves off at Uhuru saying the country was “finally free”. 

“Freedom is here with us. I want to tell Kenyans that finally you are free and we are finally a democratic country, it became a crime in this country to become a friend of Ruto,” he said at the top of his voice.

He added: “It is only that it was not put in the penal code. From today I want to tell Kenyans that you are finally free and from now you don’t have to talk on Whatsapp for fear of not being recorded by state agencies.”

The worse was to come, when the Azimio brigade took to the streets to, among other things, decry the high cost of living, demand for electoral reforms.

President William Ruto pays a courtesy call to Former President Uhuru Kenyatta at his Gatundu Home on December 09, 2024. The two leaders discussed issues of National interest.[PCS, Standard]

The President accused the Kenyatta family of bankrolling the protests. In July then Interior CS Kithure Kindiki with his colleague Kipchumba Murkomen then Transport CS, accused the former Head of State and his family of using what they called unorthodox means to derail President Ruto’s government.

“All persons, including current and former political leaders and public office holders, have an obligation to follow the law. Retired office holders, including former presidents, governors, MPs or MCAs must allow their successors to execute their mandate and not resort to blackmail, sabotage and other unorthodox means to derail them,” Kindiki said.

A week after National Assembly Majority leader Kimani Ichung’wa warned that the former president’s farm was at risk should his alleged sponsorship of opposition activities continue. Even before his words had settled, goons invaded Kenyatta’s family farm in Ruiru (Northlands) and made stole over 2,500 sheep.

Ichungwa had said: “Na mali ya MKenya ikivamiwa, hata hizo mashamba zenu tutazivamia na wenye hawana mashamba wapate mashamba Kenya hii... msifikiri ati ni Wakenya wa kawaida watapoteza mali (even you you will pay a price if you continue to instigate violence and bloodshed in this country...and that is my message to none other than Uhuru Kenyatta, the sponsor and singular financier of Azimio,” he said in a viral clip.

Later, after the invasion incident got heavy criticism, Ichungwa denied that he fanned attacks on the Northlands farm even as he called for investigations. 

Next came the raid on Uhuru’s son’s home and the gun drama where police officers tried to access the home over claims that Jomo Junior was in possession of unlicensed firearms. That forced Uhuru to personally rush to his son’s rescue.

Family security

He said the alleged raid was politically instigated courtesy of his association with Azimio and Raila, citing threats to his family by State functionaries.

“I got a report from my son that he had come and as he was leaving the watchman at the gate told him there were people claiming to be DCI officers in a vehicle with Sudanese registration. They claimed they want to see him,” the former Head of State told journalists outside his son’s home.

“From my knowledge, when the police want to do something they don’t come in foreign number plates... they have a warrant and state their case and produce their warrant... I told them don’t open the gate,” he went on, wondering why the government had chosen to go after his family.

“They have removed their security and now want to remove their personal weapons. Are they doing that because they are planning something? If they are planning something, my only plea is that they don’t plan against my mother or children. Plan for me,” he said.

“When I was president I defended my country. As a retired man, I am protecting my family and I will. And I will not be intimidated,” he said.

“I have no other explanation to give because these things are flowing in a row. I have a whole minister of the government saying... people who have been guarding my mother for the last 50 years withdrawn at night,” he responded to a question on whether he thought the raid was political and tied to his association with Raila, he asserted that it was his “democratic right to associate with the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya leader”. 

Soon afterwards, a plan to investigate the Kenyatta family by establishing a commission to investigate state capture was mooted by Ichungwa who at one time announced that the Bill was at an advanced stage.

Among the issues the commission was to take up included extrajudicial killings, economic manipulation and abuse of authority.

In yet another blow prepared by the administration, Kenya Revenue Authority was looped into plans to investigate claims of dodging taxes by the family. Claims were that the vast family businesses had issues with taxes. The probe whose fate was never made public targeted over 300 companies associated with the Kenyatta family and powerful individuals who served in the Uhuru administration.

On January 31, 2023 during the Annual General Meeting and Conference of the Africa Prosecutors Association in Mombasa, the president made a veiled attack at the Kenyatta family for evading taxes.

“We cannot continue to operate in a space where those in power exempt themselves from paying taxes, Their day is up. Every citizen must pay tax,” he said.

“Even if they sponsor demonstrations so that they don’t pay tax, I want to promise them that they will pay tax. There are no more exemptions. This country is not an animal farm where some are more equal than others,” he said.

What followed was heightened social media propaganda by government operatives led by new media guru Dennis Itumbi who claimed a law had been crafted to exempt Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his successor from paying estate duty on inherited property.

“Did you know that there is a law in Kenya exempting the Kenyattas and Mois from tax on inherited land? Animal Farm!” Itumbi tweeted on January 30 using Uhurunikulipa ushuru hashtag.

The campaign against the Kenyatta family by the Ruto led government saw Mama Ngina Kenyatta, for the first time in as many as over 40 years issue a bold response. She said if she has defaulted on any taxes, her property should be auctioned.

“I am surprised to hear some people say that others do not pay taxes. The government has its own system of how things are handled,” Mama Ngina said at the Tewa Catholic Church in Mpeketoni, Lamu County.

She added “Paying taxes, whether it is income tax or any other tax, is mandatory for everyone, big or small, to pay according to their ability and income. This is not a matter for discussion in newspapers, public rallies, or on TV. If you do not pay taxes, you go to court. That is the law”.

The former First Lady went on to challenge the government to auction her property and belongings if indeed it was certain that she has not been paying taxes. 

“If you do not pay what you are supposed to pay, your belongings must be auctioned. So there is no need to tarnish others’ names. No.” she added. 

When the Kenyatta family was going under public scrutiny and criticism, majority of Kenyans did not express empathy. They looked at it as an overly wealthy kingdom that needs no sympathy from the masses.

Some of them described the Kenyatta’s as oppressors while others called Uhuru unprintable names ‘’who should exit office in haste so that a chicken seller assumes office’’.

Many thought the Kenyatta family name would be forgotten, and quietly ebb out of Kenya’s politics. But if recent events are anything to go by, such thoughts are being proved wrong.

The President’s visit to Uhuru’s Ichaweri village, where Ruto’s allies led by his senior advisor Moses Kuria threatened to urinate at the gate, and the subsequent Cabinet reshuffle which included Uhuru’s men in it, indicates that the Kenyatta dynasty remains a voice in Ruto’s hustler government.

Word on the street is that Uhuru’s brother Muhoho will soon join Ruto’s administration with those in the know saying he may also feature prominently in Ruto’s second term re-election game plan.

Ruto, Uhuru’s ally turned foe and now back to ally, is poised to mentor Muhoho in the fashion second President Daniel Moi got Uhuru into politics in what will ensure continuity of the Kenyatta name and family legacy in Kenya’s public affairs.

The president is not the only leader who has had a Damascus moment, immediate former deputy president also issued his profound apology to Uhuru when things started going haywire for him - weeks before he fell out with Ruto. 

On March 25, Rigathi Gachagua emotionally sought forgiveness from Mama Ngina over Kenya Kwanza’s political transgressions against her family during the height of the 2022 campaigns.

Mama Ngina has, however, remained quiet, an image she has held for the last over 40 years since Mzee Jomo died in office. Despite holding an enviable position of being wife to a president and mother to another the matriarch of the family has cultivated a reclusive quiet image over the years.

“I tender our apologies to Mama Ngina and ask her to forgive us since we are more like her children. It was political bad manners and shall not happen again. We lacked respect for her -and it is regrettable,” Gachagua said on a Kameme TV and radio interview.

Gachagua said Mt Kenya and himself were misled into demeaning Uhuru and that this “mistake should never happen again.”

“Come rain come sunshine, we will never again vilify our king. We came here and vilified Uhuru Kenyatta. I repented after that.... ,” he said at a rally in Kimende Kiambu in June this year. 

It is not clear whether Gachagua will continue speaking good about the Kenyatta’s after the meeting between Uhuru and Ruto which led to the inclusion of Uhuru’s men in the Kenya Kwanza government. 

Other than Ruto and Gachagua, Kenyans too have been showing their support and solidarity with the Kenyatta’s. At a recent public event in Embu congregants went wild cheering when Uhuru appeared at the function. On October 26 when Uhuru was celebrating his 62th birthday, locals celebrated him in various parts of the Mt Kenya region. They gave heartfelt apologies for the political excesses meted upon him at the height of electioneering period.

The return of Kenyatta’s influence has elicited mixed reactions among political pundits who are torn between the myths and the need by Ruto to seek validation following Gachagua’s successful act of pulling the Mt Kenya region away from him.

“A closer look at unfolding political events indicate that both Ruto and Gachagua have been scrambling for Uhuru to seek his family’s validation,” said Kamau Wairuri a political scientist and policy researcher “ Ruto seems to have outsmarted Gachagua. A combination of Uhuru and Gachagua would have given Ruto’s sleepless nights,”

He however warned that Uhuru Ruto reunion may not yield any political gain since the emotions of the Mt Kenya region would not be settled by appointment of Uhuru’s allies.

“If I were in Ruto’s shoes, I would woo the Mt Kenya region through development projects as opposed to appointment of his former boss and continuation of empty rhetoric,” he warned.

 Former DP Rigathi Gachagua emotionally sought forgiveness from Mama Ngina over Kenya Kwanza’s political transgressions against her family during the height of the 2022 campaigns.

The myth and the family

The Kenyatta name has enjoyed myths that surround it. As observed by political pundits, such mysteries told about an individual or a family politically boosts its image. The myths told about the Kenyatta name have helped cement it into the country’s psyche.

Other than the baby boomer generation that lived through Jomo Kenyatta’s era, several authors have captured myths around Mzee Kenyatta recording the reverence and adoration he attracted to being treated as a semi-god within the Agikuyu community.

Some regarded him as ‘a black Moses’, which could explain why the Mt Kenya region was quick to stand with Uhuru in 2013 allowing him to clinch the presidency.

In Lee Njiru’s President’s Pressman - a Memoir, the longest-serving scribe at the presidency in Kenya’s history, shares the myths that his Embu natives had about Mzee Kenyatta. One was that he had a hairy tongue. The other was that his eyes smoldered and were on his forehead. The other was that he could read people’s minds. 

This belief mostly from the Mt Kenya region emanated from Kenyatta’s assertion that he had used magic spells to successfully woo women, a confession contained in his seminal treatise Facing Mt Kenya,” Njiru writes in his memoir.

He said the Agikuyu grew up holding Kenyatta whom many had not seen in great awe. And that “he was a veritable bogeyman until I met him physically.”

When Njiru received orders to report to Nakuru State House to start working as Mzee Kenyatta’s press officer, he trembled. The fear emanated from the frightening stories he had heard about him. Njiru was forced to deploy his wife on a journey to Runyenjes in Embu to ask his mother to pray for him as he appeared before Kenyatta.

“Like Adolf Hitler, he had deliberately nurtured the status of an infallible superman until Kenyans willingly accepted the outrageous estimation and glorification of himself,” Njiru wrote in his book. 

In Facing Mt Kenya, which was published in London in 1938, Kenyatta described himself as the grandson of an apprentice to a witch doctor. That he was a great believer in mysticism, black and white.

Kungu Muigai, a member of the Kenyatta family, told The Standard that the family believes in the traditions of ‘seers’ and that he is actually named after his grandfather who was the family’s seer. 

“It is true that the seers reign in our family. My grandfather whom I’m named after, Kungu Magana, was a great seer whose reputation grew so much that Waiyaki Wa Hinga, the Agikuyu chieftain, summoned him to live with him at Thogoto and that is how our family went to school thanks to missionaries,” said the Kenya Cultural Centre Council chairman.