Jeremiah Nyagah, the son of former Cabinet Minister and 2007 Pentagon member Joe Nyagah, has thrown his hat in the ring in the race to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta.
A late entrant, to be sure, but the businessman who imbibed politics all his 44 years, says neither Raila Odinga nor Deputy President William Ruto can make the radical changes Kenya needs. They are products of the system, argues.
Kenya is still suffering from colonialism and is striving towards democracy. President Uhuru Kenyatta is an incompetent economic manager, Nyagah believes.
Unregistered youth and youth unemployment are a time bomb, and if elected president, he'll spend his first year on his knees pleading for restructuring Kenya's monstrous debt.
Nyagah spoke to the Star political reporter Julius Otieno in an inclusive interview on a wide range of issues.
When did you get involved in politics?
I have been involved in politics all my life. I come from a political family. My grandfather was a minister. My father was a minister. So, at the age of 44, I can say I have been in politics for 43 years.
But my first real involvement was in 2002. I was involved in the campaign for Mwai Kibaki, just as a young boy. I did the adverts for Narc.
In 2007, I worked for five months at the Raila Odinga presidential secretariat on his communications team.
In 2017, I worked for my father, Joe Nyagah. He stood as an independent candidate.
Why have you decided to run for political office?
Ni haki yangu (It is my right.) I consider it my duty.
I'm a political scientist. I'm a citizen of a democracy and in Kenya, we strive to be a democracy.
We are not sure if we've arrived at the destination but we strive for it.
Why the presidency?
When my father passed away, we were already busy working on his presidential bid for the August 9, 2022, General Election.
He stood for things I need to actualise.
One, democracy.
The reason my father was in ODM in 2007 against his community and at great cost to himself— political, personal and financial— was because he believed in democracy.
ODM had the numbers. ODM won that election and he believed in democracy more than he believed in a party. That was fundamental. And for sure, I inherit that from him.
Two, integrity.
We require a president who can prove the source of every single shilling of his money, or her money. I can promise every single Kenyan I will not steal a shilling of your money.
I have never stolen a shilling. I have never done business with the government of Kenya, despite coming from a family that has been in government for 60 years.
Never once intentionally have I ever taken a shilling of public money. My father was in public life for 40 plus years. He died in debt.
Don’t you think DP William Ruto and ODM leader Raila Odinga can actualise your father's vision and fix the problems?
I don't think either of them has the right answer for Kenya. I don't think either of them will move this country forward in the right direction.
We require radical reformation.
We have so many problems that if we do not institute radical reforms — these are not about small, small things — but radical reforms to how we run our government.
The next thing is basically revolution.
Our problem is that we have a system that is colonial. Let's be honest. It’s in people’s mentality that this system is suppressing citizens.
It's not getting better, it’s getting worse. There were an estimated six million unregistered youth. We are told now that fewer than two million young people.
That is the most dangerous development in our history as a democracy and a republic.
When young people turn their back on voting, they no longer believe it can make a difference in their lives. We are in a very dangerous place.
We are playing with a time bomb with our young population.
And if we keep pushing, we will have a situation where this political oppression becomes allied with increasing economic oppression. They can't even afford to eat.
When you go to bed hungry, there's only so far this can go before these young people are going to push back.
Why do you think neither Ruto nor Raila, can bring about transformation?
I don't believe either of them understands the need for the kind of changes that need to happen.
Our Deputy President is very much a product of the system. He came out of university and went straight into the system. He has been in that system.
Groomed by that system, worked in that system masterfully for 30 years. The system works for him. I don't believe he understands what needs to change or desires to change what works for him.
In terms of our former prime minister (Raila), he is my political father. He likes to talk football analogies.
As his political son, I want to say he has the ball but he has been cornered. He cannot score from where he is. I don’t believe he has the necessary numbers in the coalition to score that goal. I think his coalition is weaker than before.
I think he's struggling to connect with the younger generation. It is, therefore, the duty of the son to enter the field to help score the goal.
On which party are you running?
I chose to run as an independent.
You are coming into the race very late in the day. Are you a spoiler for someone in Mt Kenya?
I am not a spoiler. Others are spoiling for me in Mt Kenya. I will win more votes in Mt Kenya than any other candidate. Guaranteed.
Have you hit the road running? Are you campaigning?
I told you I have been in politics for 43 years. This is not a campaign that I started yesterday. My launch was the other day but this campaign started decades ago.
You come from a well-off and well-known family. Can you claim to know the problems ordinary Kenyans face?
Njaa ni njaa. Poverty is poverty. Lawlessness is lawlessness. To be killed by police is to be killed by police.
The majority of people in Kenya are struggling to get basic things.
They are struggling to put food on the table. I have had my own struggles my entire life. I have had a career. I have looked for jobs.
I've had jobs, I've lost jobs. I've paid school fees. I've educated my children. I pay rent.
Why are Kenyans struggling to put food on the table?
The baseline is incompetence and mismanagement of the economy. We're looking at a budget where in June, VAT is going to come back on wheat flour, cooking oil. Why ? Because our public finances are in distress.
You mean President Kenyatta’s administration has been incompetent?
Yes, economically. The Jubilee administration, which includes Deputy President William Ruto. And I am not even talking about the 10 years, I am talking about between 2013 and 2017.
That is when we more than quadrupled our debt burden. That was when Eurobond I and II happened.
That is when SGR 1 and 2 happened, plus many other things. Those five years were by far the most incompetent years in terms of economic management in the history of this republic.
Every pain we are feeling today comes from those five years.
What would you do to restore the economy?
If elected, God willing, I am well aware I will have a minister of Finance with one foot in Nairobi and the other in Washington, Brussels, Paris and Beijing renegotiating debt. We will go there on our knees.
What will you do in your first 100 days?
Debt renegotiation. Debt restructuring.
If God makes me the president through the people of Kenya, I will spend the majority of my first year on my knees in Washington, Brussels, Paris, Beijing, London, wherever I need to be because of the debt.
Whoever comes in is entering a bankrupt institution. We have a budget this year, the final Jubilee budget, in which more than Sh1.8 trillion will go to debt repayment, more than all other expenditures combined.
There's no two ways about it. This is a crisis
(Edited by V. Graham)
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