Meet rebranded Laikipia lioness Cate Waruguru
She was a vicious defender of Deputy President William Ruto and the face of defiance in his camp but Laikipia Woman Representative Cate Waruguru is emerging not only as an ardent grassroots supporter of President Uhuru Kenyatta and the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) but also an irritating critic of the former Eldoret North MP.
Waruguru who was among the leading lights in the pro-Ruto Tanga Tanga squad has abandoned the weekend rallies where the team would hurl harsh words against Uhuru and Opposition chief Raila Odinga.
In a dramatic turn of events, she has retreated to Laikipia where she has been using every platform to champion the President’s agenda and BBI.
In what would easily pass as a case of the biblical Road to Damascus story of “Paul to Saul” Waruguru who ditched Ruto after meeting Raila on June 9, has also been using the well-attended events in villages including food donation functions, church services and tours of government projects to criticise the second in command.
Ironically, the fiery MP curved a national image defending Ruto.
She has described Ruto as a coward and hypocritical for “supervising” a cabal of politicians led by Emurua Dikirr MP Johanna Ng’eno and Oscar Sudi (Kapseret) to insult Uhuru and his family.
“I have all the reasons to believe that Sudi, Ng’eno and even Kipchumba Murkomen amongst others are not angry.
They are selling a narrative and a script from their masters. Their godfather and political mentor have made it a habit to use his attack dogs to communicate his message because he is a coward.
He cannot stand in broad daylight to communicate and tell the president off, enough is enough,” Waruguru said.
Ordinarily, for a person who was part of the pro-Ruto women leaders coalescing around Inua Mama Njenga Taifa outfit that would harshly criticise Uhuru and Raila, she would have echoed DP’s post in which he called for restraint among his troops and even stung anyone linking him to the insults.
Instead, she termed the post as hypocritical and demanded Ruto personally apologies to Uhuru and his family even as she said that the conduct of his troops was enough reasons as to where he should not ascend to power, a complete opposite of just recently when she would claim the DP was the right choice.
Waruguru, her Nyeri counterpart Rahab Mukami, Faith Gitau (Nyandarua), Wangui Ndirichi (Kirinyaga) and Kandara’s Alice Wahome have been the feminine faces in the DP’s camp in central Kenya but the Laikipia MP was been the most vocal and would use unkind words on a target, making her an asset.
But Waruguru now says she was misled into supporting the DP by people who had “taught her bad manners of loitering”, saying she only learnt she was in the wrong camp after she realized Ruto was an over ambitious leader out to embarrass his boss by plotting to inherit him before his time is over and someone whose leadership styles are not transformative.
“You (people of Laikipia) will not see me in another county. I will always be in Laikipia other than on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays when I am required in Parliament.
All those other days I will be home. You know, the Tanga Tanga team had taught me bad manners. Every day I was in a chopper loitering.
The helicopters will now be landing in Laikipia,” she said, adding the fundraisers the DP was organising were useless.
The MP equated her previous movements and support for DP to a chicken that raids the neighbours homestead during the day and after feeding enough, it returns to its usual coop in the evening.
“Every time when the clock hits 6pm, every chicken knows where it sleeps. We have loitered in our neighbours’ places and fed on maize and beans in other our neighbour’s homes, now it’s time to return home,” he said.
Dr Michael Mugo, the director of Foundation for Dialogue and also a political analyst, believes from her actions, Waruguru may have taken a bold step that could give her a political lifeline considering today’s happenings that have sharply divided the nation.
“Waruguru being one of the young parliamentarians in Kenya and being very intelligent despite the noises he makes, made a personal decision.
One about her political future and how to relate with the on going government,” said Mugo who hails from Marmanet in Laikipia West.
And for a woman who previously attracted the wrath of government allegedly due to her defiance, fortunes have dramatically changed.
This was demonstrated by a delegation of top government officials led by Water and Sanitization Chief Administrative Secretary Dr Andrew Tuimur and National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority chairman Erick Okeyo who graced her National Government Affirmative Action Fund even on July 9, heaped praises on her and declared that they have been sent by Uhuru allegedly on Waruguru’s initiation.
