The weekend saw Kenya Kwanza Mt Kenya leaders launch a barrage of attacks on former President Uhuru Kenyatta ostensibly for bankrolling ongoing Azimio la Umoja public protests.
All along Kenyans have witnessed how the current regime has been hellbent on settling scores with the former president. They have used every opportunity to do so at various fora calling him all manner of names and making unkind references to him, utterly desecrating his status as a former president of this country.
In the country’s history since Independence, we as a people have revered our former presidents and treated them with a lot of honour and decorum in their retirement; and similarly so in death wherein they have all been accorded state funerals.
But what we are now seeing this regime doing to Uhuru and the Kenyatta family is not only regrettable but setting a bad precedent for the legacy of reverence pervading the country’s presidency.
In their well-choreographed lie, which they assume Kenyans are gullible enough to buy, the regime-allied leaders have opted to pick on Azimio as an avenue through which to besmirch the person of the former president and the Kenyatta family.
At their weekend congregation, the leaders issued blatant threats of an impending attack on the property of the Kenyatta family, particularly the Northlands property, and it was no surprise the same came to pass just a day after. Coinciding with a similar attack on the East African Spectre.
As an Azimio insider, I wish to challenge the leaders to table any tangible proof that the former president is indeed bankrolling the protests by making public any evidence to the effect – the amount of money Uhuru has so far spent on the protests, including bank account through which the money is channelled.
Since relinquishing power, the former president has spent most of his time on international engagements – the Ethiopia-Tigray peace initiative, the DRC conflict and, lately, the Nigerian elections.
At no time since then, has Uhuru attended any Azimio function or got involved in the coalition’s activities remotely. He has neither appeared at any of the rallies preceding the protests nor the demos themselves.
It is therefore dishonest for the Mt Kenya leaders to unjustifiably attack the former president in his peaceful retirement and subject him to the kind of treatment witnessed during the family’s Northlands property invasion.
Just the other day, Uhuru’s mother, Mama Ngina Kenyatta, the widow of the Founding Father of the nation, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, in a rare move was forced to come out to counter allegations by the regime’s allies that her family were tax cheats for the period her son Uhuru was in power.
The former First Lady, who rarely speaks in public, was appalled by the claims and called for due process of the law to be followed rather than besmirching the family name as tax cheats.
She challenged the regime to take the family to court and be made to pay the outstanding taxes, if any. Alternatively, she asked the state to auction her properties in the event she was found to have failed to honour her tax obligation.
Then come Monday, Kenyans watched in disbelief in broad daylight the plunder and destruction occasioned on the Kenyatta family Northlands property, under the guise of bankrolling Azimio protests. TV channels showed the faces of the vandals behind the destruction and livestock thieves akin to those involved in banditry menace in some parts of the country.
Similar TV news footage exists of the Mt Kenya leaders issuing threats on the impending attack on the property. Like other Kenyans, these leaders are subjects of the laws of the country and must not be allowed to get away with such impunity.
Kenyans are keenly waiting to see how the relevant organs of the government are going to handle this matter, to ensure justice is done for the Kenyatta family.
Executive director of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM)
