www.Kisii.Com: Syndicated news from only reputable sources [Nation, and Standard Newspapers, Kenya Times, KBC, etc.]

Big Stakes: Nyachae Loses First Round

Details

Published on Saturday, 07 July 2007 06:41

The fairly quick ratification by Kanu headquarters of the ouster of Mr. Simeon Nyachae as the Kisii Kanu branch chairman did not come as a surprise to many people.

But it is the manner in which it was carried out by a team led by Mr. Geoffrey Asanyo and former YK92 operative Sam Nyamweya which has raised political temperatures in Kisii to unprecedented heights.

The two antagonists could hardly be more dissimilar. On one hand is Mr. Nyachae, the scion of an old influential family in Kisii, a long-time fixture in government who in later years has managed to carve for himself an enviable grassroots pull in Gusiiland.

On the other is Mr. Asanyo, a self-made wheeler-dealer with no previous elective post in Kisii, one who has infuriated many of the locals by taking on a man they consider to be their most accomplished son.

The sight of Mr. Asanyo and Mr. Nyamweya poking fingers at Mr. Nyachae's firmament in Kisii is something that has occasioned intense annoyance among the former minister's supporters, who insistently and noisily have been deriding the duo as con men. Their anger was inflamed as they watched, helplessly, as battalions of policemen and the local administration were marshalled to chaperone Mr. Asanyo in his dramatic takeover of the branch last week.

Publicly, Mr. Nyachae and his supporters point the finger at old Nyachae foes Joseph Kamotho and his cabinet counterpart Sam Ongeri as the people using Mr. Asanyo. But deep down, they understand that the show of force put on display that day of the branch takeover could only mean that the green light came from forces much higher up.

The operation is understood to have been planned for the previous Friday. But that had to be stood over because Mr. Nyachae happened to be upcountry attending a function in Nyamira. The least Mr. Asanyo's boosters wanted was to have a situation where the combative Mr. Nyachae was in town and at hand to egg on his followers to resist the ouster.

In fact, the takeover had been announced some days earlier, but from the safe distance of Kericho. It was the taunts from Mr. Nyachae's agitated supporters back home daring the group to make their move in Kisii that clearly prompted the group, and its high- level backers in Nairobi, to move in with the show of might. "The government," DC Joseph Mutemi pointedly warned during a Madaraka Day address in Kisii town, "should not be played around with."

The showdown with Mr. Nyachae was, in a sense, inevitable. Ever since he resigned from the government in February in protest over a demotion from the Finance portfolio, Mr. Nyachae has steadily transformed himself into a forceful critic of the government and has in effect become a voice of the opposition operating from within the ruling party.

This, coupled with the manner of his departure from the government, is understood to grate badly with President Moi. The rupture has been deftly capitalised upon by Mr. Nyachae's erstwhile rivals in Kanu in their apparent endeavour to push him out, and eventually marginalise him, from the political mainstream. For Mr. Asanyo and company, the time was ripe to act.

So far, Mr. Nyachae has made it clear that he will not oblige his enemies by formally defecting from Kanu, much as he says he is being provoked to do so. He is clearly determined to fight it out from within, and many of his more enthusiastic supporters imagine that he will indeed prevail such that by the year 2002 he will emerge the ruling party's presidential candidate.

"It's not that one wants to be in this party so much. But one should not be pushed around. Everything has an end," Mr. Nyachae's wife, Grace, told the Sunday Nation.

Mr. Asanyo justifies his takeover on the grounds that the branch had been "dormant" throughout Mr. Nyachae's tenure and that the ousted team failed to fill vacancies left open when the sister district of Gucha was created. "It's a question of younger, more active blood assuming leadership," he told this newspaper.

But on the day of the takeover, he had a more prosaic explanation which inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. He said that Mr. Nyachae's ouster was necessary so as to forestall him "embarrassing" the party when the national delegates conference was summoned. He was no doubt referring to the widely held belief that Mr. Nyachae plans to vie for a top party position, possibly even the chairmanship.


Mr. Asanyo started off as a salesman in Eldoret, then moved to Nakuru where he established a motor dealership and cultivated close ties with the Kanu network there.

He subsequently got himself elected a councillor and later chairman of the volatile Nakuru Kanu branch, but his reign is remembered by many residents as the time when gangs of heavy-handed and oppressive party youthwingers ruled the town.

He eventually fell out with the Nakuru Kanu clique and was bundled out of the branch chairmanship in 1995. Around the same time he almost lost his property as auctioneers were unleashed to re- possess it.

Mr. Nyachae and Mr. Asanyo were not always enemies. When Mr. Nyachae was elected to the Kisii Kanu chair in March 1995, Mr. Asanyo, then a party operative in Nakuru, was among the notables from the Kisii community who lent vocal backing to Mr. Nyachae's ascension.

It was around this time that he made a memorable comment to the effect that some of those opposed to Mr. Nyachae's leadership in Kisii would do better to learn politics at the master's feet.
The forces that had put up a fierce rear-guard fight to stop Mr. Nyachae from taking over as branch chairman were led by Mr. Nyachae's eternal Kisii rival, the late cabinet minister Zachary Onyonka, assisted by the late Lawrence Sagini and a hitherto Moi confidante who has since fallen out of favour, Mr. Jared Kangwana.



Following the demise of Mr. Onyonka, Mr. Ongeri, who represents Nyaribari Masaba constituency that neighbours Mr. Nyachae's Nyaribari Chache, is now perceived to be the standard bearer of the anti-Nyachae forces. He holds no post in the Kisii branch, but he remains close to key Kanu titans who Mr. Nyachae regards as his most deadly enemies.Mr. Kangwana, who hails from Mr. Nyachae's Nyaribari Chache turf and is believed to have seriously mulled over running against him in 1992, has in recent times been out of the political limelight.

Probably as a result of the late Onyonka's lingering anti-Nyachae legacy, many of Mr. Nyachae's most determined Gusii opponents hail from Kitutu Chache, which Mr. Onyonka represented until his death. Not only is Mr. Asanyo and Mr. Nyamweya from there, so is another prominent Nyachae foe, Mr. Casper Gichana, the Gusii County Council chairman.The exact circumstances that led to the falling out between Mr. Nyachae and Mr. Asanyo remain unclear, but they became apparent in 1996 following the death of Onyonka and the build-up to the by- election in Kitutu Chache in January 1997.
Mr. Asanyo was one of those who presented themselves for Kanu's nomination alongside the eventual winner, Mr. Jimmy Angwenyi, whom the Nyachae forces had decided to back. As it were, the Kanu establishment in Nairobi and its allies in Kisii had rallied for Onyonka's son, Richard Momoima, but despite a controversial repeat of the nomination, he could not overcome the momentum generated on behalf of Mr. Angwenyi.Mr. Asanyo's previous attempt at a parliamentary seat was in Nakuru Town constituency in 1992, but he lost out to Ford Asili's Dr Lwali Oyondi.

Onyonka's son, Richard Momoima, had reportedly been included in Asanyo's initial line-up as assistant secretary-general. But he is said not to have been keen, presumably because he remained dubious about the constitutionality of the whole "coup".Mr. Nyachae's conviction that there is a plot to harry him out of Kanu would seem to be borne out by utterances from the party's key people, including Mr. Kamotho, who have been urging him to go away.

From Kanu's reading and that of many other people, Mr. Nyachae is not averse to making a deal with the DP, though the likes of Shariff Nassir predict any alliance will break down even before it gets going.Certainly, Mr. Nyachae has taken to praising DP leader Mwai Kibaki quite profusely, telling all and sundry that Mr. Kibaki's repeated demands for an explanation as to how Sh160 billion in annual taxes is squandered when the country is such a bad shape re quires official attention.

Though no formal alliance has materialised, an engrossing political minuet has been going on between Mr. Nyachae and the DP. Whenever he holds major rallies in Gusiiland, a retinue of DP MPs is invariably in attendance. During the Nyamira function last week, the DP was represented by Mr. Kamau Thirikwa from Laikipia and Mr. Joshua Toro from Murang'a. Also in attendance were Ford Kenya's Soita Shitanda and NDP's Otieno Kajwang.

On paper, Mr. Nyachae's crowd and the DP would seem a not-too-awkward fit. The DP has consistently scored fine electoral results in Gusiiland to the extent that Mr. Kibaki has twice - in 1992 and 1997 - collected more presidential votes there than Moi.

But the immediate problem is that Mr. Nyachae's game-plan to remain in Kanu and fight from within conflicts with the DP which, at least in its utterances, considers Kanu beyond redemption so much so that it has repeatedly shunned entreaties for cooperation a la NDP.

Even if Mr. Nyachae were to decamp, many observers are sure the question of fitting in with the DP would not be easy. It is widely considered unlikely he would seek to join as a mere rank-and-file member and whatever mode of his entry would not be without some unsettling moments for a party known most for its ossified and conservative nature.

Mr. Nyachae is quite clear about one alliance he would rather not be entangled with: One with the NDP. That antipathy originates, according to a Nyachae family member, to an alleged remark by NDP's Oburu Odinga to the effect that his resignation from the government was inconsequential and that the Opposition was better off without him. "Curiously, he (Mr. Nyachae) had not indicated any wish to join the NDP or any other Opposition party," says the Nyachae family source.
Kanu headquarters says Mr. Asanyo's team is a caretaker one. It has yet to give an indication when fresh branch elections will be called. Mr. Nyachae has also yet to give an indication of whether he will be in the running or he will step aside and let his enemies run the show.
If so, his supporters maintain that Kanu will be as good as dead in Gusiiland.