Professor Kivutha Kibwana is certainly not your idea of a rabble rouser. But lately, he has sharpened his tongue and wit to battle it out with the Lower Eastern political kingpins — Kalonzo Musyoka and Charity Ngilu.
The Wiper chairman hit out at his party leader
over his decision to work with President Uhuru Kenyatta. He thinks the deal is not helpful to the region. He also told Kalonzo to accept to be challenged in Ukambani politics.
The reason of taking on Kalonzo, which also fits his excuse, is that the Wiper leader has recruited himself to the role of a President Uhuru’s spanner boy, while eyeing the Presidency in 2022.
The first split emerged when Kaonzo said during his father’s burial that he was now Uhuru’s errand boy, for which some Wiper leaders sought further clarification.
“People want to know what exactly he meant because he did not consult. He seems to have backed off midway to the finish line,” former Machakos senator Johnson Muthama said. Kibwana says such antics are outdated and an affront to the pride of the Kamba community, Kenya’s fifth largest cultural grouping.
Why then is Governor Kibwanaplaying hard ball with the Wiper leader?
Kibwana cannot vie for governor in 2022, having been elected twice. He now has to target a national seat. To bargain for this, he must style himself as a leader of the Kamba people. This role has since 2002 been played by Kalonzo....a role Kibwana claims has been relinquished by the spanner boy narrative.
During his two terms, Kibwana has lifted Makueni to a model county. He has launched projects that have endeared him to Makueni voters. These range from healthcare, farming to financial engineering not witnessed in any other Ukambani county. And while at it, he has locked out tendepreneurs from Makueni coffers, rolled out projects to locals and avoided the unsolicited advice from Nairobi-based Kamba professionals and their theory-laced style of macroeconomics. So the locals in Makueni have a say on every devolution coin, a scenario that has cemented their relationship with the governor.
Makueni people are mature and firm. If they back you politically, nothing, not even money or threats will change them. Ask Raila and he will confirm this based on the 99 per cent vote he raked in during 2013 polls and last year.
This means if Makueni backs Kibwana’s next political move, the professor has a bargaining position to launch his new political trajectory.
Add this to the backing he has received from Senator Mutula Kilonzo Jnr and some Makueni MPs and you have a man on political ascendancy in the making.
Kivutha has the demeanor of a very polite and harmless politician. Beneath this persona is a ruthless political schemer and strategist.
His political wit and mettle was tested to the limit during his first term as governor, when MCAs frustrated him after he refused to play ball and loot county funds.
For this, he was impeached and President Kenyatta would have sent him packing.
After that scare, Kibwana warmed up to Kalonzo and easily recaptured his seat.
Some say Kibwana is a runningmate candidate. Politically, he retains good contacts within Gema circles, which he will activate should push come to shove.
Make no mistake. Kibwana harbours political ambitions. He considers himself as a possible compromise candidate for the neutrals.
He views himself as clean and untainted. As such, he thinks he could easily be trusted by Kenyans to deliver them to Canaan.
Already, Kenyans online are demanding that he vies for President.
To use the analogy of River Jordan, the law professor has to deal with crocodiles in Ukambani.
Kalonzo now owns the Kamba votes. And Makueni is his Tharaka Nithi. He will stop at nothing to maintain this status quo.
Kitui Central MP Makali Muli says, “ Kibwana has the right to his democratic outbursts. He, however, needs to tread with caution. He is the Wiper chairman. Let him call an executive meeting and explain to us what his plans for the party are. But yes, he has delivered as a governor. And for that, the people of Makueni are happy.”
Then there is the Ngilu factor and the Alfred Mutua factor. Ngilu excites the Kamba community
Mutua fascinates them in a way few people have. Love him or hate him, the Machakos governor has a following. And depending on the outcome of his Supreme Court case, Mutua is going nowhere. Should Mutua and Kibwana do a political merger of sorts? Then Ukambani politics will most likely change.
Kibwana, Mutua and even Mutula Jr must be thinking about the post-Kalonzo Ukambani era. But Kalonzo, like Raila, is not a hurry to exit, but he is clearly not the automatic choice for 2022.
He has told his advisers to prepare for a battle royal in 2022....and some are already excited about this.
For Kalonzo to clip Kibwana’s wing once and for all, he will need to sign a political deal with Gema and hope that Raila backs him.
In the absence of this, Kibwana will destabilise the Kamba ship.
However, Makueni MP Daniel Maanzo notes, “ Professor is burning bridges. He will have no connection back once the dream is over sooner rather than later. His good work in Makueni county is not a favour to us. It’s a job he applied for, got and for which he earns a salary.
KIBWANA THE POLITICIAN
Unknown to many, Kibwana is an A student, a radical and a refined trench man of the Second Liberation. He was active during the clamour for multiparty politics.
He chaperoned civil society, which then was a thorn in the flesh of Kanu and President Daniel Moi. He led covert resistance to remove Kanu from power and was in the think tank for the opposition in the run up to the 1997 and 2002 elections. As the opposition’s think tank, and a serious legal mind, his path crossed that of Kalonzo, then an unapologetic Kanu politician and Moi general, in the latter’s desire to retain power against a disjointed opposition.
Kibwana remained in these shadows until 2002, when, riding in the Narc euphoria, won the Makueni Parliamentary seat. However, he was left out of the inaugural President Kibaki Cabinet because he was neither a Kalonzo nor a Ngilu ally.
So when the infighting in Narc began Kibwana used his closeness to Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi to launch his ministerial career as his assistant Minister. His brief was simple. Create a political niche in Ukambani independent of Kalonzo and Ngilu and act as the GEMA pointman come 2007.
But there was another low hanging political fruit that he was supposed to deliver campaign for the Banana team against Orange in 2005. Kivutha and Ngilu pitched tent for banana in Ukambani against Orange driven by Kalonzo and supported by Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and William Ruto, among others. Kibwana and his Banana team were trounced...but he got himself rewarded for his efforts and appointed Minister of Lands after Kalonzo was sacked from the Cabinet.
He lost his Makueni in 2007 but was appeased with the seat of political adviser to PNU and Kibaki. It was during this stint he played a critical role in mitigating the Hague issues whose climax was the Ocampo Six, among them Uhuru and Ruto linked to the 2007 post-election chaos.
Kibwana exploited this vantage position as an adviser to Kibaki to participate in the intriguing Kibaki succession, which was defined by the Hague cases, the ‘betrayal’ of Kalonzo who had assumed that GEMA would back him ahead of Uhuru and the subsequent pull or push after the promulgation of the new constitution.
Kibwana detractors say he played a role in the alleged sidelining of Kalonzo having been an insider to the Kibaki kitchen Cabinet.
Could this explain why political ties with Kalonzo are shaky?
The feeling in Ukambani is that Kivutha is not necessarily his own man. Many will view him as a red herring in the succession matrix of 2022.
“I sympathise with Kivutha. He used to preach unity...now he wants it destroyed,” Charles Nyamai says.
Whether or not this is the case, the Kibwana effect is dominating social media chats in Ukambani.