The Anchor June-July 2010

ACCOUNTABILITY

Pressure mounts on VP to account

for his long tenure in Parliament

TENSION is rising in Kitui County as Water and Irrigation Minister Charity exerts political pressure on Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka to account for his long tenure as MP and member of Cabinet.

The tensions come as a result of a declaration that since Kalonzo, who hails from Mwingi  will be seeking the presidency, the main seats other seats for the Kitui County will now be givesn to Mwingi people, since the seats ought to be shared.

As a result, every initiative planned by Mrs Ngilu has been looked at suspiciously  as being aimed at ensuring that no top seat of the county goes to Mwingi. This comes as Mr Musyoka seeks to entrench himself in Ukambani and ensure that only his loyalists are elected to take Senatorial. Governorship  and parliamentary seats in the three counties of Ukambani.

Two meetings that Mrs Ngilu has planned to be held in Kitui have been preceded by an abrupt meeting by Mr Musyoka’s allies aimed ostensibly at upstaging Mrs Ngilu’s meetings. When the first such meeting was called with invitation letters signed by MPs Charles Nyamai, Kiema Kilonzo, Isaac Muoki and Mrs Ngilu herself, Kalonzo loyalists led by one Mre Mutambu called a meeting and vowed to elect Kalonzo as President and as much as decalred over the meeting planned by Mrs Ngilu for the next day.

 However when the main meeting day came, there was no doubt that the entire Kitui was in league with Mrs Ngilu.

Ngilu’s standard message at the rallies has been that  time for self serving leadership has come to an end. “ Each one of us including the Vice President must now account for one’s time in office and justify the positions that we claim to hold at the behest of the Akamba People. Time to account has come so that we dispense with those who pretend to love you, yet they live for themselves”, have been words that have seen crowds stirred to crazy levels at he rallies, obviously rubbing Mr Musyoka the wrong way.

Critics of Mr Musyoka have accused him not doing little or nothing to change the lives of voters in Mwingi North. A new claim is doing rounds that Mr Musyoka has migrated to Yatta where he has a huge farm formerly belonging to the National Youth Service. Matters have not been helped by claims that he plans to have his wife run as MP for Mwingi North while he seeks to be president of Kenya.

Kalonzo then planned another public meeting in response to Mrs Ngilu’s. His men took an announcement in Syokimau FM that a leaders meeting would be held in Kitui. Mrs Ngilu promptly put up a notice on the same radio that she would not be attending the Kalonzo meeting since she had not been invited. The scanty attendance at the meeting led to an complaint to the police that Syokimau had prevented people from attending the VP’s rally.

Amid the tension, Kitui Mayor Mr  Alex Munywoki found himself assaulted at a rally addressed by Mrs Ngilu jus the following day after he took on a youth leader at the meeting. A case is still pending in a Kitui Law Court.

This is the background that informed a trip by Mrs Ngilu and Mr Kilonzo to Mwingi North where Mrs Ngilu was inspecting water projects she had initiated in Mwingi North

Nine people were seriously injured when supporters of Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka clashed with aides of Water minister Charity Ngilu who was visiting water projects in Mwingi North, the VP’s constituency. Rather than leave Mrs Ngilu visit and step up water provision in Mwingi, the situation is so tense that she would rather be stopped, so that her message of account ting for leaders’ actions is not delivered to Mwingi North During the fierce confrontation, a driver was slashed in the head by suspected Kalonzo supporters and was treated at Kyuso health centre before being referred to Mwingi District hospital for specialized attention. His passengers were also injured while a man in Ngilu’s convoy had his fingers badly cut as he fought off a man with a knife.

“This is unacceptable. We came here to bring water to the people of this area only to be attacked by goons backing Kalonzo. What type of leadership is this? I will not be intimidated as I seek to bring development where Kalonzo has failed,” said Ngilu furiously as she came face to face with primitive dictatorship.

The Vice President could not be reached as his aides said he was traveling back from India where he was on an official function. However his aides denied ever planning the attacks and it remains  evryones guess who would have planned to stop Mrs Ngilu on a tour of Mwingi North, represented in Parliament by Mr Musyoka for the last 28 years.

The two Ukambani politicians have over the years maneuvered for political supremacy. Ngilu supports Prime Minister Raila Odinga and is working behind the scenes to regain her political support in Ukambani and relaunch her NARC party before the 2012 elections so she can field candidates for civic, parliamentary, senatorial and governorship seats.

Kalonzo has been part of the G7 Alliance with William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta but may also stand for president in 2012 through his ODM Kenya party.  Mutitu MP Kiema Kilonzo who was with Ngilu blamed the VP’s side.”

I have evidence that those who attacked us were the VP’s supporters. Let him deny it,” said Kiema. However the Kalonzo side was also injured when the Ngilu team pelted them with stones shattering the windows of a hired eight-seater matatu during a confrontation at Nyamanzei area along the Mwingi-Tseikuru road.

Trouble started 30 minutes earlier  as Ngilu addressed a rally. The Kalonzo team began shouting his “wiper, wiper”  party slogan as Kiema verbally attacked Kalonzo. Ngilu’s convoy was forced to abort the unscheduled meeting and proceed to Kyuso, Tseikuru and Kaningo area.  About eight kilometers from Kamuwongo, they again caught up with the Kalonzo hoodlums who tried to block their way resulting in the clash.

As the Kalonzo team vehicle blocked their way, Ngilu’s security lead car sandwiched and blocked its escape. At a meeting at Kyuso, Kaningo and Tseikuru, Ngilu and Kiema condemned the initial provocation by the Kalonzo team as barbaric and draconian. Ms Ngilu and Mutito MP Kiema Kilonzo had taken an anti-Kalonzo campaign to his home turf where they described the VP’s leadership as wanting. Ngilu and Kilonzo were leading civic leaders, Ministry of Water officials and Tanathi Water Services Board CEO Nicholas Muthui on a tour of Kiambere-Mwingi Water and Sanitation project, a community water intervention and drought mitigation project in Mwingi North.

They termed the confrontation a plot to stop them from accessing the area to familiarise themselves with the harsh living conditions of  Mwingi people. Ngilu and Kiema faulted Kalonzo for failing to address challenges in Mwingi and the larger Ukambani. In another development, the move by Gachoka MP Mutava Musyimi to declare his bid for the presidency may well throw a spanner into the works for Kalonzo’s hunt for the Kamba vote.  Mutava is likely to slice the Mount Kenya vote where he is an MP and send shivers for the VP in Ukambani even as Mrs Ngilu terrorizes him and may effectively confine him in Ukambani in a fire fighting exercise. Evidence of this situation is emerging after the VP spend two days in a row in Kaiti Constituency. Matters have not been helped by Ngilu’s signals that she may herself seek the top seat and further muddle it up for the VP.

Such eventuality will pin down the VP such that even if he joins other presidential hopefuls in the race to spoil it for Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Kalonzo may not even emerge as third or fourth candidate and would thus nor be in the runoff . Already, Narc has begun an aggressive recruitment drive in the counties of Machakos, Kitui and Makueni.usyimi, Kalonzo and Ngilu will certainly make the Kamba vote competitive. “Previously, Kalonzo has been using divide and rule tactics to consolidate his power base in the region but now, it is time for real politics,” says Kiema. Chairman of Ukambani Economic Forum Ken Ngumbau says the era when Kamba’s blindly followed their leaders irrespective of their development scorecard was long gone. We want to have at the helm of the regional leadership individuals who can deliver, not those who thrive on blind loyalty and sycophancy,” says Mr Ngumbau.   Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo says the region must be prepared for political change, adding voters must rally behind candidates whose development track record is known.  “We should scrutinise those seeking the big seats from our region and evaluate what they have done,” said Kilonzo. “Though Musyimi’s constituency is in upper Eastern, he has certainly hit Kalonzo below the belt due to the fact that the VP has always made forays in Embu and Mbeere, where voters relate well with the Kamba,” says Ngumbau. Ngilu say she was shocked by the state of underdevelopment in Kyuso, where children have dropped out of school due to insecurity and famine. “I am shocked that hired goons can be used to intimidate me when touring a constituency as a minister to inspect projects under my docket. This is ridiculous,” said Ngilu.  Kiema says the move by the VP to “relocate” from his original home in Tseikuru to Yatta was an indicator he was not in touch with his people, adding it had also made him be branded a “foreigner” by Yatta residents.  Kalonzo has been out of the country for nearly a week in Malaysia where he is attending an economic conference.