Isaac Mwaura: Singling me out for expulsion from Jubilee was wrong

Jubilee Nominated Senator Isaac Mwaura. [Stafford Ondego, Standard]

Isaac Mwaura does not labour to hide his excitement at regaining his Senate seat. He animatedly celebrates a court finding that faulted the Jubilee Party for expelling him over alleged disloyalty.

He gesticulates furiously as he speaks of his “unprocedural” ejection. He lavishes philosophical remarks as he describes his fall and comeback, constantly adjusting himself on one of the stone benches at the garden of Nairobi’s Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel. It’s drizzling but Mwaura barely notices.

The nominated senator has just emerged from perhaps the stormiest phase of his political life, which began earlier on the evening of February 2, when he got a text from an anonymous person requiring him to appear before Jubilee’s disciplinary committee.

He was to answer to charges of being disloyal to the ruling party by promoting ideals of Deputy President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA).

“I asked what evidence they had against me and was told I would defend myself at the hearing,” Mwaura says.

Jubilee would present a video clip showing Mwaura donning a UDA cap in December last year at the homecoming of Msambweni lawmaker Feisal Bader.

In the video, the senator prompts a gathering to chant UDA’s slogan “kazi ni kazi” in response to his own of “wheelbarrow” – the party’s symbol. He also wears yellow in the clip, a fact that would feature heavily at his disciplinary hearing. When he faced the Lumatete Muchai-led committee, he would insist, as he still does, that UDA is in a coalition with Jubilee and he had done no wrong.

“Singling me out was hypocritical because Maina Kamanda has campaigned for an ODM (Orange Democratic Movement) candidate. Johnson Sakaja is the biggest apologist for the Amani National Congress yet no action has been taken against him. The same goes for Ruto who is Jubilee’s deputy party leader and UDA’s leader,” he says.

A day after his hearing, he received word that he was trending online. Jubilee had expelled him and five other senators – Millicent Omanga, Mary Seneta, Falhada Dekow, Naomi Waqo and the late Victor Prengei – who had faced the party’s disciplinary committee in May 2020.

Official communication of his expulsion, Mwaura says, would come on February 8, three days after the news broke.

“It was disturbing to hear that I had been expelled,” he ventures. “Everything was done in a kangaroo manner and I feel vindicated by the court’s ruling,” says the former Kenyatta University student leader, and a Leeds University alumnus.

The worst would come in May when he lost his Senate seat after losing his case against Jubilee at the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (PPDT). Mwaura’s face betrays no despair as he recounts his expulsion. His voice remains upbeat.

He holds no grudges and has forgiven those “who stood in the way of justice.” Mwaura is referring to the PPDT and the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties, who he says acted under duress from the powers that be.

“I have an issue with them because they should be independent offices and not subservient to anyone.”

A year before his removal, Mwaura had become the first person with albinism to be elected to the Speaker’s panel, adding to his list of firsts, which also includes the first MP and senator with albinism. When he got his chance to preside over a sitting, he conducted it in Swahili - another first.

Mwaura had sought to replace Kithure Kindiki as the deputy Speaker but bowed out to support Uasin Gishu Senator Margaret Kamar, favoured by the majority and minority sides.

His move to step down from the Senate deputy Speaker race mirrored similar decisions that saw him vote his party’s way in virtually all matters. In many ways, he was a model party member – loyal to the bone.

That was until he had to pick sides in the worsening fallout between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto occasioned by the president’s handshake with ODM leader Raila Odinga. He chose Ruto, a calculation that would thrust misfortune his way, rendering him unemployed for seven months.

“It has been tough emotionally because you are in between. You don’t know whether you are going back to the Senate or not,” Mwaura says of the last seven months that have seen him in and out of court seeking to reclaim his seat. Hoping to regain a salary that he has gone without since May.

“My tribulations have been rewarding – spiritually. I have grown so much in faith. (In such times) You realise that you don’t survive because of a salary. I had my staff who had to be paid and we never lacked. God really provided for us,” he adds, hinting that side businesses have kept him afloat.

He would have needed an alternative source of income in 2016 had Raila’s ODM got its wishes to have him removed as a nominated MP.

ODM nominated Mwaura in 2013 to represent Special Interest Groups. His growing ambitions would see him seek to replace Kisumu Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o – who he terms his political mentor –  as the party’s Secretary-General.

By 2016, Mwaura dreamed of becoming an elected MP. He had fiddled with the idea of trying his luck in Nairobi or Kiambu. He would eventually settle on Ruiru seat in Kiambu, a move that signalled, to some extent, that it was time to jump ship.

“I went to Raila – in person – on August 25, 2016, and told him officially ‘thank you very much for nominating me. I am moving to that direction (Jubilee),” he says.

He admits that he moved to Jubilee, partly, because he wanted to ensure his political survival, adding that “there was no way I could win the Ruiru seat with ODM”. Raila’s party expelled him and nine other rebel members in October 2016.

“To be sincere, I was very much ODM, but after the Kasarani Men-in-Black shenanigans my heart was out,” says the person once termed ‘mtetezi wa Baba’, who still recalls his ODM life membership number 001215. “I thought ODM was the home of democracy.”

Democracy, he argues, would allow party members with divergent views to speak up, pointing out flaws without fearing persecution, arguing that such freedoms would strengthen parties.

In his comeback speech in Senate on Wednesday, Mwaura lamented that parties in Kenya have stood for nothing, and barely survive two election cycles. Mass exoduses, among other factors, have turned major parties into shells of their former selves.

Mwaura does not see himself seeking the Ruiru seat on Jubilee ticket in next year’s elections. In some way, his exit would contribute to disintegration of the ruling party. He says Jubilee would still be strong had it been institutionalised.

“We build a house, demolish it and use the same material to build another house. Is that not the theatre of the absurd?” He offers, while in the same breath absolving himself of playing a part in sinking the party he describes as worse than ODM.

“I have been expelled out of Jubilee. I have been edged out of Jubilee. It is them who are chasing me,” he adds, recounting that it was Uhuru who poached him having “seen something” in him.

He is cagey on whether the democracy he claims to advocate should allow a party to punish errant MPs.

“I won’t answer that question,” he says after I ask whether it is fair for nominated MPs to grow rebellious and retain their seats, blaming “political patronage” for creating a situation that does not allow party members to question some party decisions.

“There is no favour in being nominated… political parties are only custodians of the seats. There are not their seats. The parties look within their ranks and file to see who fits the position and that comes with a lot of political hard work,” he says.