Just when everyone thought that the vagaries of age and the threat posed by Covid-19 had finally relegated
former Kitui senator David Musila to the periphery of politics in Kitui, the old man has declared that he will be in the race for the seat of Kitui governor next year. Musila has been out of political action for the last three and half years ever since he came second to Charity Ngilu in the 2017 gubernatorial
elections and many had presumed that he had eventually called it a day in politics. It was not until last week that Musila broke his long silence by announcing his interest to capture the seat that escaped him by a whisker in the last elections. Musila was then running as an independent candidate after Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka had him denied the party ticket even after Musila had beaten the then governor Julius Malombe in the party primaries. The release of the results was delayed for nearly a week even though counting had ended on the same day of voting and Musila had won.
David Musila
That was to mark the end of the long friendship between Musila and Kalonzo. Musila cried foul and accused Kalonzo of betraying him even after he had gone out of his way to financially support the party. It speaks of how close the two were that Musila in his book, talks of how, in the 2009 elections campaigns, he accompanied Kalonzo to the Middle East to fundraise. Musila talks of one incident where, although he was the one who introduced Kalonzo to the Emir of Dubai, Kalonzo, because he was the presidential candidate, was accorded more respect and was allowed to go see the Emir alone. When Kalonzo came out carrying a bag, he did not, in Musila’s words, “volunteer any information on how much he had received and I did not ask”. On another instance, Musila writes of how he accompanied Kalonzo to meet the then president of Libya Muamar Gadaffi where the two were made to wait for over four days as they kept on following Gadaffi from region to region until they got a chance to catch up with him at Sirte, his home area. There, only Kalonzo was allowed into the tent to have a word with the supreme leader and place his request for help.
Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka
Again, Kalonzo on emerging from the tent with a bag did not talk anything about the money and Musila unable to bare with the opacity by Kalonzo, asked to which Kalonzo told him he would disclose that later. By the time of writing the book over 13 years later, Musila was yet to know how much Kalonzo received from Gadaffi. After all these, it must have felt like a real stab on the chest of Musila by Kalonzo when Kalonzo told his party officials to give the party ticket to Malombe whom Musila had thrashed hands down. Sure of himself, Musila decamped from Wiper and vied as an independent candidate and came a close second to Ngilu who was vying on her Narc party. Malombe came a remote third but party members in Kitui county did not sympathise with him because many had preferred Musila whom they actually voted for. Had Kalonzo let the winner carry the Wiper flag, voters said and still say, the seat of governor would still be in Wiper’s hands. That is still the feeling today although it seems a foregone conclusion that there is no way the Wiper ticket 2022 will go to Musila who resigned as the party chairman in a huff after the snub.
Julius Malombe
It is against this background that everyone in Kitui county is waiting to see the party Musila will be running on although going by his decent performance as an independent in the last general elections, he is more than likely to go the same route. This more so because going by any other party other than Wiper would not be very welcome in the region that is Wiper by blood. The entry of Musila is also bound to upset the schemes of not only Ngilu and Malombe, but also Kiema Kilonzo. Kiema who is the Kenya ambassador to Uganda is the most desperate of the four to become governor and incidentally also the most disadvantaged. The three come from the same locality in Kitui district while Musila comes from Mwingi. But whereas Ngilu is a household name in Kitui county and Malombe would have added advantage by virtue of being Kalonzo’s choice, Kiema does not enjoy such luxuries and is mainly known in his Mutito constituency and Kitui town. To give a balance to their ticket, the three would have to pick a running mate from Kitui.
Kiema Kilonzo
Already, Ngilu has fallen out with her deputy governor Wathe Nzau from Mwingi and it is expected that she will have a new running mate from Mwingi. Sometimes back, Kiema had been telling everyone who cared to listen that he was going to have Kalonzo’s son Kennedy as running mate. It would seem that this did not get the backing of Kalonzo because Kiema no longer entertains that thought, at least not publicly. For Malombe, if he is to make any impact, Kalonzo himself must go down and do the donkey work for him. When he was elected governor in 2013 courtesy of Kalonzo, Malombe who before that was a university lecturer and unfortunately he did not totally leave the irony tower he was parched on. He would for instance wear a suit and a tie from Monday to Sunday in the hottest and dustiest of Kitui villages supervising this or that project.
Kennedy Kalonzo
He also was a know-it-all and was never ready to take advice or suggestions from any one least of all the sweat smelling poor villages of Kitui who knew where the mukalya (shoes made from tyres) pinched. It was this aloofness that Ngilu capitalised on as she campaigned when she kept on mocking the governor for wearing a suit saying that the problem of the people of Kitui were not going to be finished by suits. Malombe would also behave as if the county was his personal or family business and there reached a point when only the suggestions of his wife and his sons and daughters were considered. The man would work in his office in Kitui town until 2am this because he had so micromanaged the county government that all projects of Sh200,000 and above had to get his greenlight. The result was that he found himself having too much paperwork to go through. The high expectations Ngilu had created in voters as she campaigned have come to haunt her is many see her as a failure going to the high bar she had put for herself.
