BY Wainaina Ndung’u

Former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga seems to be taunting former Internal Security minister John Michuki in death.

While he was alive, the long serving Kangema MP was an avowed enemy of the proscribed group, whose followers he relentlessly hunted down and ordered killed.

But since his death, the former leader of the group, a man the no-nonsense minister could never see eye to eye with, has transformed Kangema into his hunting ground.

In a move some observers interpret as taunting the former minister in his grave, Njenga recently used a campaign rally to launch his presidential bid through Mkenya Solidarity. Mr Njenga perceives Kangema as his launching pad as he has already fielded a candidate in the constituency, in a bid to succeed Michuki, a man Mungiki loved to hate.

Through the September 17 Kangema by-election, the former members of the dreaded Mungiki sect are set to try to conclude unfinished business with Michuki. In what many Kangema residents see as a renewal of old rivalries, the Mkenya Solidarity Movement, which is connected to the former Mungiki sect through its former leader, has unveiled humble village shopkeeper John Gathogo Githaiga as its candidate in the by-election.

Mr Gathogo was unveiled during a function termed as a show of might where a 300-vehicle convoy arrived for the opening of a party office in Kangema.

At Muranga’s General Ihura Stadium, the statement of one of the last speakers at the rally was telling. After most speakers had addressed the crowd, Mr Njenga escorted a grandmother to the podium. The grandmother praised the former Mungiki boss for having rescued her, “from the cave”.

Frustrations

She told the crowd dominated by youths below 40 a little bird had told her that there was no difference between Mkenya and Mungiki. She was voicing a thought that is the subject of discussion in the area although Mr Njenga thereafter disowned her sentiments as “personal.” But underlining the commitment to concluding the unfinished business, the MKenya leader recalled how he and his lieutenants were frustrated after visiting Michuki at his home in 2005 to plead for an end to the extra judicial killings of their followers by police.

“He was in charge of the police as minister for Internal Security but he remained defiant to the end telling us that we all would be hearing death announcements,” Mr Njenga told the crowd.

The 33-year-old MKenya candidate sees himself as a unifying factor if elected the next Kangema MP and says the local community is deeply divided between those who opposed or supported Michuki’s crackdown against members of the dreaded sect.

“There are so many families in this area which lost innocent members during the conflict between the two extremes. All that they crave for is hope and assurance that this will never happen here again,” Gathogo said in an interview.

“The issues that made many of the youths in this area to support such a grouping are still outstanding and nobody but me understands and can address them best,” says Mr Gathogo.

According to Mr Njenga, Mkenya is also hoping to capitalise on the fallout from the crowded nominations of the leading party in the area —The National Alliance (TNA) — and he has told contenders who feel disgruntled that they were welcome to his party.

Mkenya’s strategy is to appeal to youth and the older generation who felt left out during the three decade of Michuki’  tenure. Michuki was first elected area MP in 1983 and was only out between 1988 and 1992, a fact attested to by key point men of its affiliate party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) last week.

Michuki, the son of a famous colonial chief, is best remembered for his resolve to achieve tangible results in dockets that he headed. But former members of the Mungiki sect also remember his ruthlessness while attempting to wipe out the sect, which had spread terror and death in some regions.

Observers point out that of all counties in the country, Mungiki was strongest in Murang’a, a fact confirmed recently at a rally in which Mkenya candidates were introduced for Gatanga, Kiharu, Maragua, Mathioya and Kandara constituencies.

Branding itself

What it means is that the party only needs to identify a candidate for Kigumo constituency to have covered the county that was the epicentre of the Mungiki.

Mungiki  has been branding itself as a union of the offspring of former Mau Mau fighters who bore the brunt of another ruthless operation by the colonial government to crush the Mau Mau in the 1950s whose sting continues to be felt five decades later.

Because the collaborators were in charge when land consolidation and demarcation was carried in the Kikuyu reserve in the 1950s and early 1960s, they were allocated the most fertile and prime land as well as vast portions of reserved townships, markets and trading centres.

The Nyeri-Kiria-ini-Kangema-Murang’a road is the main street and all the commercial buildings on the right belong to descendants of the late Senior Chief Abraham Michuki while on the left you will find the hoi polloi of Kangema Constituency.

Senior Chief Michuki, who had learnt a great deal of capitalism from the colonialists, had 42 wives and amassed a lot of land in and around Kangema. In his home area in  Muguru Location, it would be a miracle for a person outside his clan to win an elective seat.

Such is the fertile ground that the former Mungiki sect is mounting its campaign to hit a blow and win recognition as a force to reckon with in Central Kenya politics.

Many observers, however, say Mkenya is unlikely to make an impression for a variety of reasons. The first is its link with the Orange Democratic Party (ODM), which saw the party’s Central Province co-coordinator Peter Kuguru and Murang’a County ODM chairman Michael Rubia attend the Murang’a rally.

The anti-TNA, anti Uhuru Kenyatta message of the party is also seen as a platform that might cost the party votes in an area the former is the leading presidential candidate. Then there is the high octane Mungiki link.

A resident of Nyagatugu village in Rwathia location who spoke to us in Kangema town said the party might be surprised at the bitterness against it by those who lost relatives during the height of Mungiki’s infamy.

Terror campaigns

“They claim that Michuki killed them like rats but what did they expect when they were themselves carrying out a merciless terror and intimidation campaign?” asks a woman who claims to have lost two sons to the Mungiki.

Another victim of the sect from near Kangema town who lost a husband says she would never vote for a person associated with the sect because its members intimidated and terrorised defenceless families who had nothing to do with the past injustices they were protesting about.

“The people who suffered most in the Mungiki intimidation campaign are indeed the descendants of the Mau Mau war who are poor, landless, uneducated and jobless,” says a Nyeri based civil servant from Kangema.

But Mkenya insiders views the huge turnout of youth in their Saturday rallies as a sign of acceptance by young people, who stayed away during the TNA nomination.

Mkenya solidarity sympathisers are buoyed by the low youth turnout during the TNA nominations citing this as a pointer to the youth rebellion in the constituency.