This week, he appeared before the Director of Criminal Investigations, due to his fake arrest some few weeks before. How things changed for this once all-powerful Mr Fix It of the Handshake administration that was interestingly initiated on March 9, 2018.
Coincidentally, Raila Odinga and his cohorts were at the DCI headquarters to accompany Matiang’i, threatening to lead his supporters in storming the premises. Indeed, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Matiang’i is quoted as having said, "I lost every power that I had. You can treat me the way you like but I have learned my lessons. If I were you, I would act differently because a time will come when you will leave office just like I did."
This same Matiang’i, after the alleged raid on his residence, rushed to court through his lawyer Danston Omari to seek an anticipatory bail. Interestingly, he is on record as having castigated those who were on his radar when he was Interior minister.
Four years ago, he told the parliamentary committee on security, "You prepare to commit a crime, and then you go to court and come up with an anticipatory order. We are hearing it is an invention of the Kenyan Judicial system.
"You cannot be arrested, he said, so you go, get the order, arrive here, and go and break into Honorable Ngunjiri’s house. You have an order; you anticipated that you are going to make a mistake. You cannot be arrested."
This is the same Matiang’i who only three weeks ago, sought the same orders after faking an arrest in his house, and the mainstream media broadcast the news without any form of verification, something that even the Media Council lambasted them for.
It’s important to ask ourselves how Matiang’i rose to fame. A past personal assistant to the once powerful Cabinet Minister Simeon Nyachae, the Kenyatta University graduate and UoN’s former lecturer rose to work for various NGOs such as the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, and the State University of New York. In 2013, he was appointed by then President Uhuru Kenyatta as Minister for ICT. He at some point acted as minister for Lands, before being taken to the Education docket. While there, he acted as Minister for Interior, before being confirmed for the position.
Fred Matiang’i distinguished himself in the ICT ministry when he refused to be coerced by the mainstream media in delaying the shift from the analogue to the digital platform. The stations switched off their broadcasting for some time, but eventually the industry migrated to the platform. In education, he was able to have all school buses painted yellow, something that has distinguished them from other PSVs and enhanced security of learners. He also helped curb exam cheating and occasioned the release of exams in record time, thus curbing of malpractice. Further, he implemented a policy that all KCSE exam candidates who got C plus got government admission to public universities.
These reforms made him used as a pawn in a selfish game of the two handshake brothers to edge the then Deputy President William Ruto out. In January 2019, He was thus appointed chairman of the National Development Implementation Committee of Cabinet which all CSs, the AG and Head of Public Service were members.
From then on, Matiang’i whose popularity at time was high was even touted as a possible compromise presidential candidate. I remember attending a funeral in Murang’a and the local chiefs in the area had a brief to campaign for him at the grassroots. They introduced themselves as ‘team matiang’i' to the mourners!.
It is alleged that at one point when the deputy president was being blocked from attending a public function in Kisii, he sent some unpalatable messages to the UDA leadership. The police were used to disrupt many meetings organised by the deputy president, and the provincial administration was withdrawn from attending to his functions.
In fact, a rather bizarre incident occurred in Kenol whereby a police officer teargassed a church congregation, under instructions that the church service shouldn’t continue, it did. Many people disappeared or were found dead during his reign as minister evidently by the then SSU police killer squad.
In the run up to the general elections, the Azimio brigade was overconfident that with him at the helm, he would deliver the electoral victory. Matiang’i even had a party associated with him aptly named UPIA registered, to rival UDA ostensibly to confuse voters.
He apparently orchestrated the defection of some Gusii leaders to Azimio such as Omingo Magara, then UDA National Treasurer. Now, the people defending him are ODM stalwarts, the same ones that castigated him only some few years ago, when Raila attempted to swear himself in and the consequent deportation of Miguna Miguna to Canada.
As the President aptly put it on March 15, 2022 during the UDA’s NDC, “Power is transient and the people of Kenya will overcome: we will not submit to your threats and blackmails, we will not bow to you. We will not worship you, we worship the living GOD in heaven; we worship no human being.”
For Matiang’i, power has been indeed transient!
(Edited by V. Graham)
