From: Ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2012
Endorsement of Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta for president by the Gikuyu, Embu, and Meru Association (Gema) was not well received by some Meru MPs, not because Uhuru is a bad leader but because the move has taken ethnocentric line.
Originally Gema was seen as vehicles to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru communities. It was also to promote education, welfare, the spirit of brotherhood among the communities and to preserve their cultural heritage.
The association became more attractive to the communities when it set up a Child Welfare Fund to help orphans and destitute children. Young people were lured into it through the formation of Gema football clubs.
Even though its first office bearers were dominated by Gikuyu prominent politicians such as Julius Kiano, Minister for Local Government as its chairman, Mwai Kibaki, Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Development, treasurer, Jomo Kenyatta, patron, the Embu and Meru were only given two positions, that is Jeremiah Nyagah, Minister for Information and Jackson Angaine, Minister for Lands and Settlement.
The Embu and Meru began to see light during the 1970s when Gema was widely associated with moves to change the constitution of Kenya in an attempt to prevent the, then Vice-President, Daniel arap Moi, not only from gaining automatic succession if president Kenyatta became indisposed, but because that president was meant to come from Gikuyu community.
Mr. Kihika Kimani who made the call for constitutional change was seen by Embu and Meru communities as hijacking the association from them to Gikuyu. Other prominent Gikuyu members who dominated the association included Njenga Karume and Njoroge Mungai.
When Mzee Kenyatta died in his sleep in 1978, Attorney General Charles Njonjo who was ordered by President Kenyatta to register the association in 1971 convened a Cabinet meeting in which it was resolved that the presidency would go to Gema.
Although kingpins such as Koinange, Mungai, and Angaine had been seen as possible candidates to succeed Kenyatta, the whole idea was still that it must be occupied by Gikuyu.
In 1980, months after Moi ascending to power, the association was banned, along with other groups perceived to have been ethnic-based. It is, however, believed to have continued to function under the guise of Agricultural and Industrial Holdings Ltd.
The association was revived in 2003, when President Kibaki came to power, though in a different outlook: Gema Cultural Association with its chairman retired Methodist bishop Lawi Imathiu assisted by retired ACK Bishop Peter Njenga.
This is not the first time the Gikuyu elite have used other ethnic communities to achieve their political interests. Months of formal partnership between Kanu and Kadu Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and Tom Mboya were used from Luo community for similar interest.
Paul Ngei had to break from Kanu to form the African People’s party when the Mboya group in Kanu challenged his leadership of the Kamba people. The threat was however, that if other political parties, associations or movements were formed it would weaken the Kenyatta’s hidden political ambitions. Kadu for that matter was a threat.
Kanu was predominantly Luo and Kikuyu party. Kadu on the other hand was formed specifically to federate the Kalenjin political alliance, the Maasai United Front, the Kenya African People’s party, the Coast African political Union, and the Somali National Association before it attracted other minority ethnic groups.
Had these movements survived Kenyatta would have been removed from power during presidential election. British settlers supported the small tribes against Gikuyu and Luo for the reason that if one of the small tribesmen took over presidency their properties, including land were safe.
Kenyatta and other Gikuyu elites could not wait to see this happen because grabbing the land from the British settlers was one of the main agenda. It explains why Gema became associated with land buying companies through which they acquired huge chunks of land around the country, especially at the Coast and in Rift Valley.
They took most of the land previously owned by the former white settlers, which had initially been earmarked for resettling those who had been turned into squatters by the colonial land policies.
One of the most famous land buying companies was Gema Holdings. Most of the people including retired President Moi and his former Vice President, Mwai Kibaki who had considerable political influence in the Kenyatta regime, were given the opportunity to buy as much land as they could.
That is why when chaos erupted in the Rift Valley shortly after the controversial 2007 Presidential vote tally, the land question became the bone of contention. Kenyatta led a pack of ministers MPs and civil servants in getting plots, mainly in Rift Valley.
Politicians with power and money as well as businessmen with liquid cash managed to acquire thousands of acres. For instance, hardly a year into Kenyatta’s regime, Mama Ngina bought 1,006 acres in Dandora from Messrs Hendrik Rensburg for Sh200, 000.
In the same area, Peter Muigai Kenyatta bought for Sh51, 000 some 700 acres and a further 1266 acres North East of Nairobi for Sh87, 000. Mr Kenyatta also paid Sh45, 000 to acquire 100 acres in Dandora as a “Trustee for minor son Uhuru.”
Former President Daniel arap Moi had by 1964 bought 2,344 acres in Kampi-ya-Moto for Sh60, 000. Mr Kenyatta’s right hand man, Minister of State Mbiyu Koinange, also bought 645 acres in Limuru for Sh497, 000 among others.
First Vice-President Jaramogi Oginga Odinga appears not to have bought land using his name but did so under the Luo Thrift and Trading Company. In 1964 he bought 394 acres from the estate of B.H. Patel in Miwani and a further 401 acres in 1965 from C. Patel for Sh255, 000.
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was convinced only Kanu could unite Kenyans. He was the leader of the elected members of Legislative Council (Legico). He took the floor of the house and maintained there would be no independence without Kenyatta and Kanu.
It was only later on that Oginga admitted he calculated falsely that merger of Kadu and Kanu, far from strengthening the party, introduced dangerously divisive policies and forces into Kanu’s policy from within.
It is against the background that Gema is now using G7, PNU-Alliance among other parties to make sure that after Kibaki the power must go back to them. It explains why former Thika County Council chairman, Francis Wakahia was quoted to have said that: “Tukuenda ruuri rucoke mukaro na nowe tu ungihota” (we want the river to return to its original course and you are the only person capable of doing this). (Standards, January 28, 2002).
It explains further why according to Limuru MP Peter Mwathi, any Kikuyu politician who doesn’t support Uhuru Kenyatta will fall ill, some of whom include former Cabinet minister Joseph Kamotho who refused to support Uhuru during his address meeting in Murang’a.
According to the MP Njenga Karume fell ill because he was installed a Kikuyu elder contrary to the traditions and against wishes of respected elders who had installed Uhuru as their “king”.
The Gema believe that within the G7 Alliance that brings together Mr Kenyatta, fellow ICC suspect William Ruto, Saboti MP Eugene Wamalwa, Matuga MP Chirau Mwakwere and other putative community leaders would be a force to bar Prime Minister Raila Odinga from becoming the president. With this number Gema is convinced Uhuru will get it to State House.
Nigerian Catholic bishop Albert Obiefuna was right to say during the first African Synod assemblies that in Africa, the blood of family, clan and tribe is thicker than the water of baptism that is why Christians or even Muslims for that matter are able to fight each other.
This was already seen in Rwanda in 1959 when bishop Perraudin in his famous Lenten pastoral letter saw the ethnic problem in Rwanda as the source of the social injustices. More so when the bishops of Rwanda in 1992 wrote: “Rwanda will never know peace if Hutu, Tutsi and Twa do not understand and accept each other as equal.
Two years later the bishops came to realize that the core of the problem was the ethnic antagonisms following the 1994 genocide. Ethnicity in itself is not bad-it only becomes a problem when it takes the form of ethnocentrism or tribalism, like Gema, G7 or other tribal alliances.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
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