The Kalonzo Musyoka You Don't Know

Kalonzo Musyoka's Bid For The Presidency: The Inside Story Part I

Today we start this series that analyzes the chances of one Kalonzo Musyoka being the fourth president of Kenya. It appears that even in his home turf, he has to overcome some major obstacles. The name of one such obstacle is shadowy figure, John Harun Mwau.


If there is anybody Kalonzo Musyoka fears as far as his presidential bid is concerned it is definitely not the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki or his fellow presidential hopeful Raila Odinga. It is in fact somebody from his very own backyard. One John Harun Mwau.

Mwau of the Mkamba Osa Finya fame, will probably not contest the presidency as he did ten years ago. However, the multi-billionaire businessman who is widely suspected to be a drug baron (see tomorrow's post where we analyze evidence pointing to this) has money literally sticking out his ears and has a strong motive to use plenty of it to stop Musyoka from ascending to the presidency.

The rivalry between Mwau and Musyoka has been going on for over ten years now but it came to a head during the infamous Kilome by-elections when Musyoka campaigned vigorously for one Mutinda Mutiso for the Kilome parliamentary seat hence denying Mwau an opportunity to go to parliament.

In spite of a high profile campaign involving helicopters and satellite phones, Mwau spent a fortune in the elections and even organized for electricity in a few towns in the constituency only to manage a paltry 2,000 votes to Mutiso's 11,000, a result many see to have been influenced by Musyoka who made several forays in the constituency to ensure that Mwau lost.

In public, Musyoka has openly castigated Mwau claiming he is a shadowy figure whose roots are not known and has even gone further to claim that the billionare is not from Ukambani and he is in fact a Kikuyu by tribe.

Many Ukambani residents believe this allegation due to the fact that Mwaus grasp for the Kamba language is wanting. Matters are made worse by the fact that the bearded businessman usually gets cagey when asked about his background or roots.

For starters, Mwau has enjoyed goodwill from both the Moi and Kibaki administration and due to the nature of the business that he does, he stands to lose everything and probably go to jail if he faces a hostile government like that of a Musyoka presidency.

Mwau's companies have been in the news for all the wrong reasons ranging from money laundering to tax evasion but these weighty matters seems to have been swept under the carpet hence most Kenyans believe that the billionaire has also made inroads into Kibaki's state house just as he did in Moi's.

It is also an open secret that Mwau is also a major arms dealer, supplying instruments of death mainly to the Congo region where war is a way of life for the mineral rich people of that vast country now ruled by Joseph Kabila.

To ensure that his consignments are never interfered with, Mwau has been contracted over the years by the government to operate an inland container depot in Athi river, in the outskirts of Nairobi known as Pepe which was in the news two years ago when cocaine drugs worth millions of dollars were cleared from the depot.

The manager, one Bobby Macharia was charged in court with drug trafficking but was later acquitted due to lack of evidence but again, that is another story for another day.

Mwau has always had political ambitions but his arrogance seems to be his stumbling block as he will never humble himself before anybody, leave alone the electorate and his popular line in politics is telling the masses that they need him more than he needs them hence they should vote for him.

He ran for the presidency in 1997 on a Party of independence candidate of Kenya PICK ticket and performed so disastrously that he did not even manage the Westlands parliamentary seat, which he was also vying for.

Mwau was to emerge later in 2000 this time claiming he was out to unitr the Kamba community and empower them, a move that earned him the wrath of the then community kingpin, the late Mulu Mutisya who ganged up with Kalonzo Musyoka to ensure that the billionaire did not make any inroads into Ukambani politics.

Mutisya and Musyoka arranged a series of rallies in Ukambani and told the attentive crowds that a bearded man would come calling with sacks of money and urged the people to take the money but not listen to him since he was a crook and the cash was "dirty money" anyway.

Apparently, the Mutisya/Musyoka propaganda machine worked like a dream as Mwau managed to attract big crowds in his political meetings but at the end of the day, lost the Kilome parliamentary seat after dishing out millions of shillings and initiating various development projects in the constituency.

Mwau has always enjoyed a very cosy relationship with Moi and his sons who have also been implicated in dealing with drugs, mainly by protecting barons like the late Ibrahim Akasha who was gunned down in the streets of Amsterdam a few years ago over what is believed to have been a deal gone sour.

There is little doubt that id Kalonzo Mustoka is elected president, John Harun Mwau will be among the first casualties of his administration. Mwau knows this just too well and will do everything in his capacity to ensure that Kalonzo does not end up in that enviable posution where he is run this country. All indications are that Mwau will not spare his vast resources in ensuring president Kibakis re-election this year.

Insiders say that Mwau visited Kibaki's State House a few times last year. One need not be a rocket scientist to figure out how the two can mutually benefit from each other.

Of late, Mwau seems to have hibernated but his people say he has struck a mega deal in Rwanda and spends most of his time there. Then again, the money laundering controversies involving John Harun Mwau's companies are still fresh on the minds of most Kenyans so naturally it wouldn’t be prudent to appear in the limelight at this juncture.

Rest assured, the last has not been heard of this shadowy and controversial figure who seems to bounce back from murky waters to spring a surprise on his detractors. Will Kalonzo be one of his victims in the run up to the Kenyan general elections 2007?

How John Harun Mwau really made his billions