The jury is still out on whether President Uhuru Kenyatta\u2019s sacking of Mwangi Kiunjuri and the move to inject resources to resuscitate the struggling agricultural sectors key to the Mt Kenya region will douse the rebellion in his backyard.<\/p>\n
Many Uhuru backers in the region are also placing their hopes on the ability of new Agriculture CS Peter Munya to deliver, citing Kiunjuri\u2019s lacklustre performance as having given the President headache.<\/p>\n
The former CS is also a close ally of Deputy President William Ruto, and has not shied away from publicly declaring where his heart is. By sacking Kiunjuri and appointing Munya, a Ruto critic, President Kenyatta appears to have tipped the scales in ex-Meru governor\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n
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Just last month,\u00a0Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria sensationally claimed Munya had called him and warned him against visiting Meru if his intention was to chip away at the support President Kenyatta had in the area.<\/p>\n
Munya leads a team of other CSs, among them Joe Mucheru (ICT), Sicily Kariuki (Health), James Macharia (Transport),\u00a0principal secretaries and parastatal chiefs whose agenda is turning around the fortunes in Uhuru\u2019s political base.<\/p>\n
It is this group that was said to be meeting at La Mada Hotel to plot the DP\u2019s assassination, a claim that they dismissed as populist.Political commentator Kobia Ataya thinks that by denying Kiunjuri a coveted platform, Uhuru also hopes to send a warning to his critics that he still packs a punch even as he trudges to the end of his second term.<\/p>\n
Lame duck<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cUhuru is no lame duck. He has teeth and can bite. Agriculture is key to the appeasement of the Mt Kenya region. The new price of Sh33 per litre of milk has already gone far in calming the nerves,\u201d says Prof Ataya.<\/p>\n But will the rebellion by the pro-Ruto forces mainly composed of sitting legislators subside?When we asked one close Uhuru ally this question, his answer was \u201cthey had no option because they would soon discover that they can\u2019t politic against the one person Kenyans had given the highest mandate and still deliver to their constituents.<\/p>\n \u201dMurang\u2019a Senator Irungu Kang\u2019ata said Tuesday\u2019s reshuffle was principally intended to assert Uhuru\u2019s authority as the region\u2019s kingpin, and the situation was unlikely to change.\u201cEvery local politician will have to toe the line and a clear political road map for the region has been drawn,\u201d the senator said.But not everyone thinks that way.<\/p>\n Most of the Tangatanga MPs did not wish to stick their necks out against the President, but one of them speaking off record said Uhuru just bought a two-week peace interlude with the Tuesday changes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe President is doing the right thing to those who are not performing their duties properly. I hope in future, this country will run smoothly. God is watching everything,\u201d says Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua, an ally of the DP.<\/p>\n It has been clear that the President can count on only half of the legislators in his neighbourhood of Kiambu and Murang\u2019a, two MPs in Nyeri, one in Kirinyaga, two in Nyandarua, Meru and Embu. The entire parliamentary group in Laikipia and Tharaka Nithi are all allied to his deputy.<\/p>\n In Nairobi where Jubilee shares the-17 member parliamentary group with the Opposition, only three legislators are firmly in the President\u2019s corner and the rest openly align with his deputy.There are two narratives that the President\u2019s move could make or break Kiunjuri.\u00a0There is a section of Mt Kenya that subscribes to the narrative that Kiunjuri worsened the woes of farmers during his tenure as agriculture minister.<\/p>\n Should Munya succeed where Kiunjuri failed, the narrative will be given credence.But politicians supporting Kiunjuri believe that he was set up to fail and Munya has the goodwill of the Presidency that Kiunjuri did not have.It seems inevitable that Kiunjuri will try to recover from his fall, but by losing the lucrative Cabinet slot, has he been armed or disarmed?<\/p>\n Free hand<\/strong><\/p>\n Nominated Senator Isaac Mwaura believes Kiunjuri now has a free hand to lead the political conversation in Mt Kenya.\u201cKiunjuri has been given the firepower to contest the leadership of Mt Kenya region because power is never given,\u201d he says.Nyeri Town MP\u00a0Ngunjiri Wambugu argues that Kiunjuri had used his office to catapult himself into the leadership of the region instead of helping farmers.\u201cNow, he is going to have to look for a different platform,\u201d the MP said.Political commentator Herman Manyora advised the ex-CS to hold back his hand in taking on the President and reinvent himself.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Head of State has instruments to help him clear anything you bring up against him,\u201d Manyora said.\u00a0Igembe Central politician James Mithika, however, observes that though Mt Kenya region has never forsaken the President, there was growing perception that it was sliding away from his grip.\u201cWas Mwangi Kiunjuri another axis of power or influence? The answer is No,\u201d Mithika said.\u201cKiunjuri is a slow punctured tyre with an ego bigger than common sense who politically has never won a seat outside Laikipa East. His performance in Cabinet is not impressive either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The jury is still out on whether President Uhuru Kenyatta\u2019s sacking of Mwangi Kiunjuri and the move to inject resources to resuscitate the struggling agricultural sectors key to the Mt Kenya region will douse the rebellion in his backyard. Many Uhuru backers in the region are also placing their hopes on the ability of new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,12],"tags":[432,605,431,136],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-cabinet-reshuffle","tag-mt-kenya","tag-mwangi-kiunjuri","tag-uhuru-kenyatta"],"yoast_head":"\n