Was Nkaissery killed by Maasai curse and not heart attack?

The late Cabinet secretary for the Interior had an icy relationship with fellow Maa leaders, if the muted messages and missing messages of condolences from leading Maa political, cultural and community leadership is anything to go by.

Since his elevation as CS for Interior, he became a tough-talking retired military man and a true product of his time.

Reports have emerged that the Samburu Laisi clan traditionally known for invoking curses, blessings or good fortunes, invoked traditional curses over the late CS’ life for alleged indiscriminate shooting of cattle by security forces in Laikipia.

“The clan elders have been praying and invoking sudden death for whoever gave the order for the shooting of livestock in Laikipia. They cursed the person involved to go down with the sun and die before the August 8 elections,” a source told The Nairobian. Clarifying in Kiswahili that, “Wameomba mara mingi huyu mtu hatakuwa hai kura ikipigwa, walisema ataenda chini na jua likitua…”

Nominated Senator Naisula Lesuuda and former nominated MP Maison Leshomo, have been vocal calling for Nkaissery’s resignation over his handling of the Laikipia crisis between Samburu herdsmen, white commercial ranchers and Kikuyu peasant land owners.

Nkaissery came of age during the height of suffocating Kanu dictatorship in the 1980s and 90s when regard for human rights by state actors was at its lowest.

Upon assuming stewardship of the nerve center of state power as Cabinet Secretary for the Interior, it soon emerged he has acquired scant diplomatic skills for navigating political disputes without breaking bones.

At the time of his death, the late CS had acrimoniously fallen out with nearly the entire crop of elected and community leadership across the Maa nation, from Kajiado, Narok, Laikipia to Samburu counties, where nearly all elected leaders had a chilly relationship with him. They rarely missed an opportunity to call for his resignation and sacking.

The most definitive illustration of this state of defrayed nerves and strained relations was that by the time he was appointed to the Cabinet, and before the late Maa political supremo William Ntimama died, the Maa nation was generally warm towards President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Jubilee administration.

However, the late Nkaissery squandered all the goodwill he found after he was poached by the government from Raila Odinga’s ODM.

By the time of his death, his actions and statements had left Masa politics scattered in all directions, but Jubilee’s side.  Former jubilee supporters in Narok , Kajiado and Laikipia had scattered into Nasa and Chama Cha Mashinani(CCM).

These include Laikipia North MP Mathhew Lepurkel of ODM, who had joined Ntimama’s goodwill delegations to Uhuru’s State House several times.

In Samburu County, President Uhuru’s hawkish supporters, led by TNA founding member and nominated Senator Naisula Lesuuda, had defected to Kanu, a party to which Jubilee has lost all networks and support base formerly loyal to TNA.

Nkaissery’s lowest moment of ignominy- and for which he never had a chance to make amends, was in early 2015, when he ordered arrest of five elected leaders from Narok. The leaders spent a night at Muthaiga Police Station in Nairobi for participating in demonstrations against Narok County governor, Samuel Tunai.

The leaders- Narok Senator Stephen Ole Ntutu and MPs Moitalel Kenta(Narok North), Korei Lemein(Narok South), Patrick Ntutu( Narok West) and Johanna Ng’eno(Emmurua Dikkirr), had led their supporters to demonstrate against alleged mismanagement of county funds and skewed distribution of economic opportunities, jobs included, by Tunai’s administration.

The high-handed response by the government to humiliate elected leaders for picketing- a constitutionally guaranteed right has since escalated to a community fallout with Jubilee administration.

Multiple enquiries and interviews brought the fore a narrative gaining currency that the late retired general bent over backwards to do the bidding of Deputy President William Ruto, the perceived de facto guardian angel behind Narok Governor Tubai’s alleged ‘predatory’ administration.

The poorly kept secret is that defection to CCM by Narok leardership, including the traditionally pro-establishment ole Ntutu family, is in preparation for the ultimate showdown: voting out Tunai is voting out William Ruto.