Influential minister whose opinion Mwai Kibaki wanted to hear

Mirugi Kariuki was an Assistant Minister for Internal Security in the Mwai Kibaki government.

He had a chequered political career. He began in the trenches and was twice jailed over links to the Mwakenya underground movement and alleged treason.

The contrasting background somehow made President Kibaki want to hear his opinion when rival extremists in the NARC administration couldn’t agree.

MEDIA COVERAGE

I came to know the assistant minister just before the August 2005 referendum on the draft Kenya constitution.

I had gone to see my friend, assistant minister Koigi wa Wamwere, at Parliament Buildings and found him with Mirugi.

We easily made friendship with Mirugi. As we parted, he gave me his cell phone number and requested me to meet him in his office the following morning to discuss some matter he didn’t disclose.

In his office, the assistant minister was direct and upfront:

“Kamau, this is off the cuff, but frankly tell me, how come the LDP wing of the government gets better and wider coverage than the NAK side?”

SPOKESMAN
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had come together with National Alliance Party (NAK) to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), which won the 2002 presidential election.

Before answering him, I made a disclosure: “Bwana Mirugi, you know your own minister and his colleague minister in the NAK side of the government wanted me jailed for alleged criminal libel. Certainly you can’t expect my opinion to be objective.”

“Not at all, Kamau,” he replied. “I very well remember your court case and thought it was ill-advised to prosecute you in the first place. But that’s water under the bridge. Forget it and let’s have an objective conversation.”

In all honesty I told him his NAK wing of the government was getting less and sometimes hostile media coverage because it was unreachable and arrogant.

“But we have a government spokesman Alfred Mutua who is always with the media people,” he cut in.

“Sure you have Mutua. But he talks to, but not with the media,” I told him. “I hear you”, he said. “So exactly where is the problem?”

ELECTION WIN
I told him the more visible Cabinet ministers from the NAK side spoke from the bully pulpit and never bothered to engage the media or any other stakeholder in the country.

“Perhaps the overwhelming 2002 election victory got into their heads and won’t care less,” I added just to rub it in.

He made a loud laugh, which I interpreted to mean he got the point but couldn’t say as much.

Not to let the opportunity pass, I chipped in with my own question:

“Bwana Mirugi, we’re headed to a referendum on the draft constitution. How come there is a stalemate within the NARC government?”

“I will also be honest with you”, he said.

“There is no stalemate on the draft constitution as such. Both LDP and NAK sides of the government agree on over 90 per cent of the document.

"The only two points of departure are on how Kenyans pick the person who wields executive power in the land and how to share the national cake. Anything else you hear outside there is smoke and mirrors.”

ADVISORS
“Please explain”, I requested. “I will tell you in confidence what I have been telling the President on several occasions he has sought my opinion on the matter,” he said.

Journalists are always looking for the rare angle and the sound bite.

Telling me that he often talked to the President in privacy caught my attention and I pursued the line.

“You’re telling me the President calls to hear your opinion,” I asked.

“Yes he does. I am perhaps one of the few outside his inner circle whose opinion the President wants to hear.”

MWAKENYA

“Why you, if I may ask?” He made a loud laugh and said:

“Maybe because it is the closest he comes to a person with Mwakenya background.

"In my first meeting with him, the only thing that amused him in our conversation is that I had been a Mwakenya man. He wanted to know what Mwakenya was all about and how it is to be jailed!”

“Interesting, why that?” I asked.

“I think it is because having lived all his life in the government, the President wants to know what the other side (opposition) looks at things.”

DEVOLUTION
I pursued: “And what does the President say whenever you give him your opinion?”

He replied: “The President never says anything. He only listens and asks that we be served more tea.

"You only know he isn’t interested in what you’re telling him when he asks for another cup of tea but excuses himself to walk out and not return. That is the time you get to know that he thinks all you have been telling him is mafi ya kuku (trash).

“In that case you may not have gotten to know what the President’s stand on the two issues of executive power and fair distribution of national resources is?” I asked.

He replied: “On the issue of sharing of national resources, my understanding of him is that he fully supports devolution.

"His problem is that emphasis when it comes to devolution has been on how to divide the cake with little on how to bake the cake in the first place.”

COUNTIES
“How is that?” I asked. He replied: “You know the President is an economist. He thinks there is too much talk on what the county governments will get from the national government and not on what the county governments will do with the money.

"He says the money given to the counties should be a means to an end and not the other way round.”

“Please elaborate.” “Simple. His thinking is that the quota given to the county governments must be to enable them produce and give the national government money to run the nation.

"His problem is that devolution, as put in the draft constitution, assumes the national government grows money on trees and has so much to throw around.”

EXECUTIVE POWER

“Understood, Bwana Mirugi”, I told him. “And what do you think is his opinion on executive power?”

He answered: “You know Kibaki has seen all these things. He participated in the writing of the first constitution in 1963.

"Whenever we discuss the issue, he summarises it to be a matter of how to politically accommodate Raila Odinga, which he says can’t be addressed by having a presidential system (where the President is elected through a direct ballot) or a parliamentary system (where the executive Prime Minister comes from the party or coalition with majority seats in parliament.”

“So how does he think Raila can be accommodated?” I asked.

“As I told you, he never lets you know what he thinks. But at least I remember him asking me whether it is a given that if Kenya was to adopt a parliamentary system, Raila would be the leader of party or coalition with the largest number of MPs.

SECURITY
We shifted the conversation to another subject. Even journalists know where to stop.

I asked: “Away from the draft constitution, on what other issue has the President consulted you?”

He told me about a security council meeting at State House where one of the members said action should be taken on persons who allegedly were insulting the person of the President and gave then Makadara MP Reuben Ndolo as an example.

He told me that after the meeting, the President telephoned him to ask who Reuben Ndolo was.

Told who he was, the President had answered: “Must you people bring to the meeting issues about every mad person you meet in the streets?”
***
On Thursday, March 31, 2006, I met Mirugi in his office.

He told me the President had tasked him to mediate peace among warring clans in Marsabit/Moyale region.

He told me after that he would be hosting a goat-eating session at his home in Nakuru on Saturday, April 15, and requested me to be his guest.

PLANE CRASH
The following day I flew out for an assignment in Tanzania and Comoro Islands. I landed in Comoros on April 10.

As I retired to bed in the evening, I telephoned a friend in Nairobi.

He told me the big but sad news of the day was that a government team led by assistant minister Mirugi Kariuki had their plane crash in Marsabit, and six people, Mirugi included, died.

I was back home on Friday 14 and travelled to Nakuru the following day, April 15, for his burial.

President Kibaki was at the burial. He looked very sad. Like me, he had lost a friend.

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