Inside Politics

Muthama hosts retreat to chart new political direction

Friday, January 3rd, 2020 05:17 | By
Former Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama. Photo/PD/PETER MWANGANGI

Former Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama will this month host a strategy meeting with the Ukambani leaders to explore the political direction of the community.

In an interview with People Daily, Muthama said as political re-alignments shape up ahead of the 2022 General Election, the Kamba nation will not bury its head in the sand nor be left behind in the negotiations.

As such, he will hold a meeting with all Members of County Assemblies (MCAs), MPs, Senators, the clergy and community opinion leaders to chart a way forward for the community. 

The meeting is scheduled between January 15 and 30.

Top on the agenda, is the setting up of a committee of eminent persons that will traverse all the 47 counties to speak to other communities with a possibility of building political alliances.

“What we are saying is that as a Kamba nation, we have helped others to clinch the leadership of this country. It’s now time for other communities to back our 2022 Presidential bid,” Muthama said yesterday.

The former senator last month triggered a political stir after he declared that former vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka will team up with Deputy President William Ruto in the next election. Kalonzo, however, dismissed the claim saying it was meant to antagonise him with President Uhuru Kenyatta with whom they enjoy a mutual relationship.

“We will put our heads together, if its DP Ruto, Senator Moses Wetangula, Raila Odinga or Musalia Mudavadi, we will talk to them. They should also prepare to talk and negotiate with us,” he added.

Kalonzo teamed up with  Mudavadi and Wetang’ula to support Raila in the last election under the Nasa alliance.  

“If they convince us otherwise, we will back their candidate,” he said.

The committee will also hold public campaigns to encourage the Kamba nation in three counties of Machakos, Makueni, and Kitui to enlist themselves as voters to shove numbers to at least three million

Political validation 

However, when asked who “his committee” will be marketing to other communities, Muthama, a friend-turned-foe, to Musyoka, was non-committal only saying every community must first sell its ideas and policies before declaring its candidature “It’s not a must you sell a candidate, let us sell our ideas and policy to the people, and we must leave the politics that it should be so and so,” he said.

Muthama, however, clarified that Kalonzo will be free to approach his committee to assist him to crisscross the 47 counties and to sell his agenda, as it will speak on his behalf.

 “But when he (Kalonzo) says, he has given up on the campaigns and only waiting for President Uhuru Kenyatta’s endorsement, as a community we won’t wait,” he differed. Muthama, who has since declared himself the new kingpin of the Ukambani region, held that the whole community can wait for Uhuru’s political validation as they will have already had a solution to it.

“Even me, Mut ama am competent and qualify to occupy the president’s seat, those who have vied on this seat, what do they have I don’t have,” he stated.

However, he clarified that he is not power hungry but is ready to fight for his community, and that he is being marginalised by a few individuals.

During a consultative meeting at his Yatta farm on Monday, December 23, 2019,  the Wiper leader disclosed that he will be in a political formation that President Kenyatta will support, thus drawing the wrath of his key ally, Muthama, who has dismissed him as being “politically bankrupt.

“I have made a resolution to work with President Kenyatta even after 2022,” Kalonzo declared at the meeting attended by leaders, business-people and the clergy.

He said he owed no one any apology for working with the President.

But Muthama has dismissed Kalonzo, saying the sentiments he made should be construed as a personal stand but not on behalf of the Kamba Community.

“What came out at Yatta meeting is that we should not strategise on how to get to the top of the country’s leadership, because we have tried before and it did not work. If we were defeated in the first attempt, second, third or even fourth, there is always a next chance, we will not relent,” he said. 

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