Daggers drawn in Jubilee as MPs target error-prone Uhuru advisers

Jubilee MPs are on the warpath against some President Uhuru Kenyatta’s advisers, who they accuse of deliberately misleading the Head of State on several occasions.

The MPs said the bad advice on matters of law have exposed the President to public ridicule and caused a communication breakdown between the President and Jubilee lawmakers.

“We have a problem with advisers who are deliberately misleading the President,” said Kieni MP Kanini Kega. “We shall start naming and shaming them starting next week.”

Although he did not mention names, Mr Kega said the spotlight will be on four officials some of who hold public office. “In particular, our target is two of them,” he said.

The assault on the advisers follows a rare political defeat the President suffered in Parliament recently and a series of embarrassing legal and political gaffes since coming to office in March 2013.

MPs from Jubilee and the Opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) recently closed ranks to reject Dr Monica Juma as President Kenyatta’s nominee to the position of Secretary to the Cabinet.

This week, Jubilee MPs broke ranks with the President and faulted him for refusing to approve pension payments for CORD leaders – former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka.

Nominated MP Johnson Sakaja, who is also The National Alliance (TNA) chairman, said some people were “misadvising the President to make him look petty and vindictive”.

‘Massive confusion’

Mr Kega said he and his colleagues would be pushing for the presidency to make public the roles and remuneration of the advisers, who he said were operating like a parallel government.

President Kenyatta has retained several advisers, most of whom are specialists in their professions. They include Abdikadir Mohammed (Legal Affairs), Nancy Gitau (Political Affairs) and Kilemi Mwiria (Education). Others include Joseph Nyagah, Joshua Kutuny and Jasper Mbiuki.

However, the MPs’ ire seems to be directed at the legal advisers who they accuse of not giving wise counsel to the Head of State. “The guys advising the President on legal matters are not doing a particularly good job,” said Elgeyo-Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen.

Besides Abdikadir, the President relies on Attorney General Githu Muigai and Solicitor General Njee Muturi for legal counsel. But a top Jubilee official who requested anonymity so as not to be seen to be widening the rift in the ruling alliance revealed that the AG has been largely overshadowed by the special advisers.

Majority Leader in the National Assembly Aden Duale, who is also the Garissa Town MP, said of the advisers: “They are everywhere trying to do everything and outshine everyone and in the process they are causing massive confusion in government.”

MPs The Standard on Sunday spoke to said they felt the President was misadvised into making public the list of 175 government officials and politicians suspected of involvement in corruption by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).

“It has become apparent that those were files still under investigation and it was premature to have them released to the public. However, these people went ahead and told the President that it was alright to release them. Now you can see that almost all the suspects are getting away scot free. This thing has boomeranged on them,” said the MP who did not wish to be mentioned.

Similarly, the MPs said the President was given wrong legal advice when he recalled last year’s police recruits who were sent home after the process of selecting them was marred by corruption.

The President issued the order in the wake of April 2 attack by Al-Shabaab militants at Garissa University College which claimed 147 lives, most of them students. He said the country was suffering such attacks due to lack of enough policemen.

Issuing the directive, the President said he would take personal responsibility for the order which was clearly illegal since there was an ongoing court case on the recruitment process.

The case had been brought by Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA), which wanted the whole process cancelled against the wishes of National Police Service Commission (NPSC).

On the strength of this presidential directive, hopeful recruits from across the country packed their bags and travelled to Kiganjo police training college in Nyeri only to be told that they would not be admitted.

It did not help that the President kept mum throughout the whole fiasco even as youth who travelled thousands of kilometres staged a protest in Nairobi.

“Why would anyone tell the President to recall the recruits while knowing very well that this was against the law? Was it deliberately to embarrass the President or are they simply incompetent?” wondered an MP who requested not to be named.

This case, he said, called to mind last year’s injudicious decision by the President to blame the Mpeketoni attacks by the Al-Shabaab terror group on the Opposition even though the terrorists had claimed responsibility.

“It was a poor judgment on the part of political and security advisers who shamelessly tried to use a national tragedy to score cheap political points,” he said.

Another case which MPs are not happy about is the handling of the appointment of Maj Gen (Rtd) Gordon Kihalangwa as the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Interior.

Although Kihalangwa was nominated by the President alongside Dr Juma and Eugene Wamalwa as the Cabinet Secretary for Water, Kihalangwa’s name was not among those forwarded to Parliament for vetting.

According to a source in the know, the legal advisers told the President that Kihalangwa would be directly vetted by Parliament, which is contrary to the law.

Communication breakdown

According to the Constitution, principal secretaries are first interviewed by the Public Service Commission before being vetted by Parliament. It is not yet clear when Kihalangwa’s vetting will start.

Although Mr Kega said the MPs are planning to debate the role of the advisers, Ol Joro Orok MP John Waiganjo said Parliament had no mandate to vet and censure the President’s personal advisers.

He, however, said there is a debilitating communication breakdown between the Presidency and the Jubilee MPs which has resulted in them working at cross-purposes. “We are supposed to be a team, but in our case, more often than not, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing,” said the MP.

He said that although State House knew of the MPs’ reservations about Dr Juma, it made little effort to lobby Jubilee legislators to support her nomination.

“If the President had come to us and explained to us clearly why he needed Monica despite our reservations, we would have understood. But no such attempt was made,” said Kega.

Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria, who backed Dr Juma, said the party could have performed better in marshalling MPs to support the President’s nominee.

Mr Kega said the same was the case when Parliament debated the President’s amendments to the Bill giving state officers, among them Raila and Kalonzo, their pensions.

“Why would anyone wait until we have passed the law and then go and tell the President that what we passed was wrong? Where were they when we were debating it?” he asked. Despite opposition by a section of Jubilee MPs in the House, the Pensions Amendment Bill was passed, thus denying Raila and Kalonzo their retirement packages unless they quit politics.

Waiganjo cautioned that the breakdown in communication between State House and Jubilee MPs could be erroneously interpreted as rebellion against the President, if it persists. This week, in an uncharacteristic move, 15 Jubilee MPs from Central Kenya reiterated their rejection of Dr Juma and cautioned the President against bringing her name to Parliament again for vetting.

Meanwhile, two Jubilee luminaries, Duale and Murkomen, tore into each other over the failure by the party’s MPs to talk the same language on various issues concerning the presidency.

During an interview with Citizen TV on Wednesday night, Murkomen singled out Duale for failing to articulate and defend the Jubilee agenda.

“He has old ideas of a headmaster or a prefect who goes around gossiping or badmouthing other prefects. The Jubilee leaders in the National Assembly are suffering an inferiority complex and have been overwhelmed by the positions they were given,” he said.

Political novice

He also castigated National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi and Mbeere South MP Mutava Musyimi, who is the chairman of Parliamentary committee on budget, for the challenges facing Jubilee in and outside Parliament.

However Duale said: “The three of us – Muturi, Musyimi and myself – have boldly defended this government’s agenda. We haven’t lost a motion in Parliament”.

He termed Murkomen a “political novice” and “a liability,” to Jubilee. “The problems we have been having in Rift Valley are because of him. He is fighting and trying to subdue everyone,” he said.

Murkomen has said he supports a referendum on certain issues, just as CORD has proposed but he differs with the latter’s Okoa Kenya campaign on the timing.

However, Duale said Murkomen is using the referendum issue to “scare” the President and his Deputy William Ruto.

Murkomen denied the claim.