The Kalonzo Musyoka You Do Not Know

Kalonzo Musyoka's Bid For The Presidency: The Inside Story Part I

Today we start this series that analyzes the chances of one Kalonzo Musyoka being the fourth president of Kenya. It appears that even in his home turf, he has to overcome some major obstacles. The name of one such obstacle is shadowy figure, John Harun Mwau.

If there is anybody Kalonzo Musyoka fears as far as his presidential bid is concerned it is definitely not the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki or his fellow presidential hopeful Raila Odinga. It is in fact somebody from his very own backyard. One John Harun Mwau.

Mwau of the Mkamba Osa Finya fame, will probably not contest the presidency as he did ten years ago. However, the multi-billionaire businessman who is widely suspected to be a drug baron (see tomorrow's post where we analyze evidence pointing to this) has money literally sticking out his ears and has a strong motive to use plenty of it to stop Musyoka from ascending to the presidency.

The rivalry between Mwau and Musyoka has been going on for over ten years now but it came to a head during the infamous Kilome by-elections when Musyoka campaigned vigorously for one Mutinda Mutiso for the Kilome parliamentary seat hence denying Mwau an opportunity to go to parliament.

In spite of a high profile campaign involving helicopters and satellite phones, Mwau spent a fortune in the elections and even organized for electricity in a few towns in the constituency only to manage a paltry 2,000 votes to Mutiso's 11,000, a result many see to have been influenced by Musyoka who made several forays in the constituency to ensure that Mwau lost.

In public, Musyoka has openly castigated Mwau claiming he is a shadowy figure whose roots are not known and has even gone further to claim that the billionare is not from Ukambani and he is in fact a Kikuyu by tribe.

Many Ukambani residents believe this allegation due to the fact that Mwaus grasp for the Kamba language is wanting. Matters are made worse by the fact that the bearded businessman usually gets cagey when asked about his background or roots.

For starters, Mwau has enjoyed goodwill from both the Moi and Kibaki administration and due to the nature of the business that he does, he stands to lose everything and probably go to jail if he faces a hostile government like that of a Musyoka presidency.

Mwau's companies have been in the news for all the wrong reasons ranging from money laundering to tax evasion but these weighty matters seems to have been swept under the carpet hence most Kenyans believe that the billionaire has also made inroads into Kibaki's state house just as he did in Moi's.

It is also an open secret that Mwau is also a major arms dealer, supplying instruments of death mainly to the Congo region where war is a way of life for the mineral rich people of that vast country now ruled by Joseph Kabila.

To ensure that his consignments are never interfered with, Mwau has been contracted over the years by the government to operate an inland container depot in Athi river, in the outskirts of Nairobi known as Pepe which was in the news two years ago when cocaine drugs worth millions of dollars were cleared from the depot.

The manager, one Bobby Macharia was charged in court with drug trafficking but was later acquitted due to lack of evidence but again, that is another story for another day.

Mwau has always had political ambitions but his arrogance seems to be his stumbling block as he will never humble himself before anybody, leave alone the electorate and his popular line in politics is telling the masses that they need him more than he needs them hence they should vote for him.

He ran for the presidency in 1997 on a Party of independence candidate of Kenya PICK ticket and performed so disastrously that he did not even manage the Westlands parliamentary seat, which he was also vying for.

Mwau was to emerge later in 2000 this time claiming he was out to unitr the Kamba community and empower them, a move that earned him the wrath of the then community kingpin, the late Mulu Mutisya who ganged up with Kalonzo Musyoka to ensure that the billionaire did not make any inroads into Ukambani politics.

Mutisya and Musyoka arranged a series of rallies in Ukambani and told the attentive crowds that a bearded man would come calling with sacks of money and urged the people to take the money but not listen to him since he was a crook and the cash was "dirty money" anyway.

Apparently, the Mutisya/Musyoka propaganda machine worked like a dream as Mwau managed to attract big crowds in his political meetings but at the end of the day, lost the Kilome parliamentary seat after dishing out millions of shillings and initiating various development projects in the constituency.

Mwau has always enjoyed a very cosy relationship with Moi and his sons who have also been implicated in dealing with drugs, mainly by protecting barons like the late Ibrahim Akasha who was gunned down in the streets of Amsterdam a few years ago over what is believed to have been a deal gone sour.

There is little doubt that id Kalonzo Mustoka is elected president, John Harun Mwau will be among the first casualties of his administration. Mwau knows this just too well and will do everything in his capacity to ensure that Kalonzo does not end up in that enviable posution where he is run this country. All indications are that Mwau will not spare his vast resources in ensuring president Kibaki's re-election this year.

Insiders say that Mwau visited Kibaki's State House a few times last year. One need not be a rocket scientist to figure out how the two can mutually benefit from each other.

Of late, Mwau seems to have hibernated but his people say he has struck a mega deal in Rwanda and spends most of his time there. Then again, the money laundering controversies involving John Harun Mwau's companies are still fresh on the minds of most Kenyans so naturally it wouldn’t be prudent to appear in the limelight at this juncture.

Rest assured, the last has not been heard of this shadowy and controversial figure who seems to bounce back from murky waters to spring a surprise on his detractors. Will Kalonzo be one of his victims in the run up to the Kenyan general elections 2007? Who Is Financing Kalonzo Musyoka's Bid For The Presidency?

A comment in Mashada posted yesterday about Kalonzo Musyoka and John Harun Mwau caused this writer to go back and do some serious research to ascertain the truth of the same.

The comment was to the effect that John Harun Mwau has financed Kanu for many years and is currently also financing Kalonzo Musyoka. We should be able to find out the truth in the next couple of days from our contacts.

However I would like to point out the fact that this new information does not contradict our coverage on the Kalonzo-Mwau rivalry in Ukambani. In politics, there are no permanent enemies and as somebody here quite rightly pointed out by asking a question, this possibility cannot be ruled out and would make plenty of sense.

The question is simply this; what would you do if you were a drug baron in Kenya? Who would you support for 2007? The answer is very simple. You would give money to all the candidates that have a chance of winning the presidency. That is what Paul Goldenberg Pattni did in 2002. Apart from heavily financing the Kanu campaign, he also made hefty donations to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga's Ford Kenya and God knows who else.

One question that Kenyans voters must ask this time round of all those seeking high office is where their campaign funds are coming from. And if no straight answer is forthcoming then that candidate must be rejected. We already know that sending anybody to State House with such excessive baggage will not serve the interests of the country and will certainly not give us the Kenya we want.

KALONZO AND WITCHCRAFT
When Musikari Kombo was found guilty of committing an election offence in 1992 by consulting a witch doctor and engaging in superstitious activities prior to the elections that year, many Kenyans were taken aback but little did they realize that almost all members of parliament do this ahead of polls.

Kombo who was later elected as Ford Kenya leader after the death of Michael Kijana Wamalwa is known to come from the Bukusu sub tribe of the Luhyia community who are notorious for believing in witchcraft and in spite of going to church during the day, many of them usually engage in cult activities when the sun sets.

The Webuye MP is not the only presidential aspirant who regularly consults supernatural beings in the dead of the night as most of them are not leaving anything to chance including the so-called God-fearing Mwingi North MP and a hot favorite for the presidency, Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.

Musyoka hails from the Kamba community who are also well known for their belief in witchcraft not to mention that Musyoka's father is a powerful witchdoctor who lives alone in a tiny island along some river where it is said that all visitors have to strip naked when they visit him as one is prohibited to set foot on the island with their clothes on.

According to popular belief in the area, one is capable of hiding evil spirits or witchcraft paraphernalia under their clothes hence the rule of stripping naked when visiting a top witchdoctor.

Musyoka claims to be a strong adherent of the African Inland Church and will never miss a church service on Sunday but those who know him well say they have never met a public figure as superstitious as the soft-speaking Musyoka.

According to close allies of Musyoka , the presidential aspirant almost always travels in the company of another strong witchdoctor known as Wa Maiyo who passes as a nominated councilor from the Mwingi town council and an entertainer of sorts who has the gift of composing and singing political tunes in Musyoka's functions.

Wa Maiyo is respected and feared so much by Kalonzo's allies that some of Musyoka's close friends will not dare interrupt a conversation between Musyoka and the towering middle aged man who carries a walking stick with him all the time though he enjoys good health and has no problems with mobility.

According to those who have been closely following Musyoka's movements, the diminutive presidential aspirant takes his orders from the witchdoctor and will always consult him about his diary and has on some occasions warned Musyoka not to visit some places as his life would be endangered.

Musyoka, a lawyer by profession is said to have been introduced to the world of witchcraft at an early age (because of his father) but in politics this was solidified by the late powerful Machakos Kanu branch chairman Mulu Mutisya who was also his political godfather.

It all started in the 1980s when Musyoka made it to parliament in a by-election resulting from the death of the local MP Peter Manandu who was shot dead in a bar by a rogue administration policeman under some very strange and yet to be explained circumstances.

The now deceased, Mulu Mutisya is said to have traveled all the way to Mwingi and met Musyoka, a young lawyer who was trying into make inroads to politics. Mutisya was impressed by the young man's demeanor and his patience even for someone illiterate as Mutisya who never saw the inside of a classroom.

Prior to the by elections, Mutisya informed Musyoka that one had to seek supernatural protection from witchdoctors so as to avoid being bewitched by rivals during political campaigns. Musyoka understood this only too well. After all his father is in that trade although Musyoka was known to be much closer to his mother who died last year and barely spent anytime with his father who is still alive.

Musyoka is said to regularly consult these men of the night including a prominent witchdoctor who resides along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway known as Dr Willy who also doubled up as the late Mulu Mutisya's witchdoctor and seer. Those who consult him say that he is able to read one's future using his supernatural powers.

Just to show how politicians, especially those from Ukambani, are so deeply entrenched in witchcraft, when the late Yatta MP John Mutiso died after his car was swept by floods on his way home, among those in the ill-fated vehicle was a female witchdoctor and her paraphernalia who also died in the deluge.

It was later established that the woman was going to the MPs home to cleanse it from evil spirits ahead of a party that the legislator was hosting the following day to celebrate his victory to parliament.

When the local press broke the story a few days later, it is instructive that it was Kalonzo Musyoka himself (Mr President-to-be) who marshaled all the MPs from Ukambani to deny the story and dismissed any witchcraft link to the legislator's death. Musyoka also hit back hard at the media for portraying the Akamba as a superstitious people.

An interesting aside here is the fact that Kamba MPs do not like being linked to witchcraft any journalist who tries to do so will usually be treading on very dangerous ground indeed.

Musyoka's name came up in yet another witchcraft incident when former PS in the President's office Prof Philip Mbithi claimed that he was attacked by invisible beings while at his office in Harambee House. He blamed Kalonzo Musyoka and the late Mulu Mutisya for the attack (Read the full story for yourself).

It is evident that presidential aspirants, Musikari Kombo and Kalonzo Musyoka will not only pray to God as they go for the highest office in the land but are bound to also rely heavily on the so-called dark forces in their bid to convince Kenyans that they are the most suitable candidates to take over from president Kibaki.

Sam R.O Kotiende
from ( www.kumekucha.blogspot.com )