Yesterday Kenyans received a glimpse of just how fast the political ball game can change when one of the most popular Christian evangelists in the country declared his interest in the highest office in the land.
Pastor Pius Muiru of Maximum Miracle Ministries launched a new political party called RAK (Republican Alliance Of Kenya) as he announced his presidential bid. He said that he would vie for the Kamukunji parliamentary seat in Nairobi.
There are many Kenyans who strongly believe that religious leaders should stay out of politics. Still, this latest development is the worst nightmare happening for the current crop of politicians and especially the political ruling class that has blackmailed Kenyans for too long now.
To start with Muiru is known to fill stadiums to capacity anywhere in the republic, a feat that only a handful of national politicians can manage at the moment. Not to mention his glitzy PR machine which in fact produced the impressive clip that was aired on national TV last night. The clip was deliberately designed to make the evangelist look very "presidential" and it succeeded. It showed Muiru being welcomed by traditional dancers (as presidents in Kenya always have) and then after the brief speech punctuated by wild cheers, the camera caught his fleet of flashy cars driving away in an extremely presidential style. It is instructive that none of the other presidential candidates so far has come anywhere near in terms of positioning themselves during their launch or ensuring that they look presidential enough.
What is important at this juncture is not whether Muiru has a chance of making it to State House. Critics will be quick to point out a number of political mistakes he made in his move to announce his bid to State House. They will further point to the rough and tumble of Kenyan politics and liken Muiru's entry to the releasing a sheep to a pride of angry Lions (not even wolves). But that is really not the point here.
The really significant thing that happened with yesterday's announcement is that the Kenyan political scene will never be the same again. Not only do we now have a candidate standing on the platform of integrity (at a time when we need it so badly in the nation), but there is also the fact that this is no tribal chief or candidate with a tribal base of any sort. What would have further caused lots of butterflys in the guts of many politicians eyeing the same office, is the fact that Muiru is fairly capable of fully financing a respectable presidential bid.
What all this means is that we are headed for a historical campaign where the rules are being significantly altered.
Interestingly a brief SMS survey on NTV last night showed that only 26 per cent of the respondents would vote for Muiru with those who said they wouldn't vote for him giving various interesting reasons why. One person even said that people of other religions would feel alienated by a Christian president, given the evangelists' high profile religious activities.
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Thursday, January 18, 2007
Mutula Kilonzo Senior: The Real Man Behind The City Lawyer
City Profile: Where we intimately profile the movers and shakers in Kenyan politics and business.
See also; Was Mutula Kilonzo murdered?
Prior to the 2002 elections, Mutula Kilonzo was simply known as the president's lawyer and was among the wealthiest 'learned friends' in the country. That was probably all that majority of Kenyans knew about him.
Behind the city lawyer is a man who came from very humble beginnings with his father being a night watchman while the mother was an illiterate housewife who struggled for her two siblings to ensure that they at least got one meal every day.
When young Mutula started going to school in his rural home of Mbooni it became evident that the boy was very clever and managed the first position from standard one to seven
He subsequently joined secondary school and continued with invincible streak before joining the university of Dar-es-salaam in Tanzania where he undertook a law degree and graduated with first class honors.
The young and ambitious lawyer returned to Kenya and opened a law firm in the small town of Machakos where he specialized in land cases and secured victory for most of his clients enabling him to buy a car only after practicing for one year.
As his work load increased, he moved to Nairobi and also started making contacts with the high and the mighty including the illiterate but powerful Machakos Kanu branch chairman, the late Mulu Mutisya who was to change his life forever.
Mutisya is said to have mentioned Kilonzo to Moi and heaped praises about his exemplary ability to argue for his clients and his loyalty to the ruling party then, Kanu.
The rest is history, Mutula became one of the president's many lawyers and in the process got some of the most lucrative briefs including the then notorious NSSF (National Social Security Fund) where Kilonzo is known to have made Sh 900 million from the fund in two deals whose details are scanty.
A philanderer and notorious womanizer, Mutula is a teetotaler but his amorous escapades are legendary as he is known to prefer women of light skin ranging from as young as 16 years. The man is in his 60s.
His own employees have not been spared either, a girl who works as a copy taker in one of the leading media houses told this writer that she had to stop working at Kilonzo's law firm after constant pressure from the randy lawyer to go to bed with him.
"One Friday morning, he called me to his office and told me that I should make my mind over the weekend whether I was going to go to bed with him and if it was not to the affirmative, I should not report for duty on Monday—I decided to quit the job," the girl told me.
Kilonzo is currently in his second marriage after divorcing his first wife who sired him two kids including Mutula Kilonzo junior, who has been pushed by the father to be a lawyer in spite of performing disastrously in 'O' levels where he got a weak division four prior to going to India to study.
The daughter is also a lawyer at her fathers firm but she concentrates in paper work at the office.
Mutula later married one Nduku Musau, a daughter of the late Machakos mega-tycoon Musau Mwania and have been blessed by two boys who are still in primary school.
Through Moi's corruption network, Kilonzo managed to acquire a fortune running into hundreds of millions and has vast investments in agriculture real estate and stocks both locally and abroad.
He could easily be among the top ten richest Kenyans and that could also be the reason why ODM values him so much that they have given him the spokesmans' role.
Watch Mutula Kilonzo Snr Death: The Shocking Truth video on YouTube now https://youtu.be/ej3XOwL6idg
If Kalonzo Leaves ODM-Kenya, What Are The Options For Charity Ngilu?
Prior to the 2002 elections, a popularity contest between Charity Kaluki Ngilu and Kalonzo Musyoka was unimaginable as it was obvious that the iron lady of Ukambani politics was miles ahead not to mention she had contested the presidency in 1997 and made history by being the first woman in the country to do so. She finished a respectable fourth, ahead of the late Kijana Wamalwa but trailing winner Moi, Kibaki and Raila in that order.
Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since then and Kalonzo Musyoka has managed to bridge the gap after he quit Kanu and joined NARC ahead of the 2002 elections.
Now that he is going for the presidency, Kalonzo could be more popular as a result of his campaigns round the country but he has numerous shortcomings, which are proving fatal to his popularity.
Unlike Ngilu, Kalonzo does not assist his supporters uplift their living standards especially the unemployed ones by getting them jobs and he prefers to have them following him around and survive on the meager hand outs that he dishes out to them.
Ngilu is known to have secured jobs for hundreds of her supporters and their relatives in the short period that she has been in government and in Ukambani it would not be surprised if it emerged that she is more popular than Kalonzo in some constituencies. Ngilu's efforts to assist her kinsmen may not be in national interests and one needs just to take a look at appointments in the ministry of health since 2003. They read like a roll call at the popular Machakos Sports Club.
Kalonzo is also known to be aloof and arrogant and cannot mingle comfortably with the down-and-out and poor unlike Ngilu who is a darling to the poor and is known to spend lots of time listening to their problems and making every effort to solve them. On the positive side, this motherly instincts have been responsible for the tremendous job that has been done at the Ministry of Health over a very short span of time.
In fact if Ngilu can play her cards well in the forthcoming elections, she can be very instrumental in checking the influence of Kalonzo in Ukambani and even force a significant split in votes to deny him a block vote from his home area.
In spite of her limited education compared to Musyoka, Ngilu has the charisma to captivate a crowd better than Kalonzo and she is also miles ahead in platform politics compared to the soft spoken former foreign affairs minister who has little time nor patience for 'small people'.
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Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since then and Kalonzo Musyoka has managed to bridge the gap after he quit Kanu and joined NARC ahead of the 2002 elections.
Now that he is going for the presidency, Kalonzo could be more popular as a result of his campaigns round the country but he has numerous shortcomings, which are proving fatal to his popularity.
Unlike Ngilu, Kalonzo does not assist his supporters uplift their living standards especially the unemployed ones by getting them jobs and he prefers to have them following him around and survive on the meager hand outs that he dishes out to them.
Ngilu is known to have secured jobs for hundreds of her supporters and their relatives in the short period that she has been in government and in Ukambani it would not be surprised if it emerged that she is more popular than Kalonzo in some constituencies. Ngilu's efforts to assist her kinsmen may not be in national interests and one needs just to take a look at appointments in the ministry of health since 2003. They read like a roll call at the popular Machakos Sports Club.
Kalonzo is also known to be aloof and arrogant and cannot mingle comfortably with the down-and-out and poor unlike Ngilu who is a darling to the poor and is known to spend lots of time listening to their problems and making every effort to solve them. On the positive side, this motherly instincts have been responsible for the tremendous job that has been done at the Ministry of Health over a very short span of time.
In fact if Ngilu can play her cards well in the forthcoming elections, she can be very instrumental in checking the influence of Kalonzo in Ukambani and even force a significant split in votes to deny him a block vote from his home area.
In spite of her limited education compared to Musyoka, Ngilu has the charisma to captivate a crowd better than Kalonzo and she is also miles ahead in platform politics compared to the soft spoken former foreign affairs minister who has little time nor patience for 'small people'.
Search engines can give you huge traffic. Here's how a Kenyan company can get thousands of visitors to their site daily.
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