Ndindi Nyoro, the Kiharu MP on Tuesday, May 19, vowed to oppose Jubilee Party’s post-election coalition agreement with the Kenya African National Union (KANU) deposited at the Registrar of Political Parties on May 4.
He further declared that Murang’a County and the larger Mt. Kenya region would not get behind the deal due to a historic grudge they had not forgotten.
The lawmaker spoke to reporters after inspecting renovation works at the Mbiri Primary School, asserting that they would not allow the party to be infiltrated.
The MP argued that Murang’a County, in particular, held a grudge against KANU due to alleged injustice committed by the administration of the late former President Daniel Arap Moi.
He claimed that were it not for KANU, Murang’a would have produced a President in the late opposition veteran Kenneth Matiba.
“We (Jubilee) cannot be swallowed by jogoo (KANU). If it was not for KANU, Murang’a would have produced a President of this country in Kenneth Matiba,” he maintained.
Matiba ran against Moi for the Presidency following the return of multi-party politics in 1992, coming in second in the polls marred by ethnic clashes.
In his storied life, the astute businessman lost a huge chunk of his wealth as he fought for an end to single-party rule in the country.
He was detained without trial at the Kamiti Maximum Prison alongside fellow multi-party activist Charles Rubia in 1990.
In prison, Matiba’s health suffered seriously and he was reported to have suffered a stroke which left him incapacitated for some time.
He was, however, released after Section 2A of the Constitution was repealed opening up Kenya’s democratic space to multiple parties.
Matiba passed on in April 2018 while Daniel Arap Moi was accorded a state funeral after his death in February 2020.
It was this grudge, Nyoro maintained, that the people of Murang’a had not forgotten and would therefore not support the merger endorsed by Jubilee Party leader, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his KANU counterpart, Gideon Moi.
Buoyed by the extra numbers, the KANU-Jubilee deal paved the way for the removal of leaders in the Senate allied to Deputy President William Ruto.
Nyoro, a vocal supporter of the Deputy President, promised to fight to protect the Jubilee Party from selfish interests that could destroy it.
