Nairobi Governor Dr Evans Kidero is shifting political base to South Nyanza, a source close to the governor has revealed. Dr. Kidero knows that defending his Nairobi seat will be a tall order, a herculean task. He must scheme and he is scheming. The forces against him in Nairobi are unstoppable and for Kidero to have a legacy, he must be unbeatable.
“He is shifting base, this you can take to the bank” the source told this writer. “But we have no bank,” I jokingly responded. The rest of our discussion is unnecessary for now.
Unknown to many people, Gov. Kidero had set out to vie in Homa Bay County. However, a meeting with Gem elders, his home turf, saw his plans fizzle after they asked him ‘where have you been all along’. And Luo elders (leave alone the commercial and titled ones like Otondi etc) can be very brutal with the truth.
Governor Kidero, a high flying corporate sector magnet, a man many credit with the rise of Mumias Sugar as an industrial power of western Kenya, and Kenya as a whole (before ukwala, tuskys, nakumatt, naivas sugar etc came to be) was unknown outside the corporate sector boardrooms and annual gala dinners of top captains of industry performers.
Nairobi, however, knew him because he lived here, and made ‘news’ as an important corporate sector player. Most of the sugar he produced in Mumias were also ‘drunk’ here – in milked tea, water or coffee. In Nairobi, again, it would be easy to ‘market’ him, for people in the city ‘respect’ those who create jobs for them – and Kidero had created – so they said, thousands of jobs. So he came to Nairobi. There were others like him, say Jimnah Mbaru, and the political race got easily framed: between politicians and technocrats.
Politicians lost.
One and a half years later, Nairobi seems to be ready again for the politicians they threw out. This feeling is partly because of the high hopes the ‘technocrats’ had given the people as they campaigned. Under Kidero, the man who turned around Mumias, Nairobi would be turned around. It would be a middle income city flowing with milk and honey. It would be a better city, and folks would live better lives.
It is not I to judge Dr. Kidero. Nairobi is a difficult city to manage. It is pretentiously cosmopolitan. It is also the capital of ethnicity in Kenya. It is a city of the 10 billionaires and millions of beggars. It is no respecter of persons.
Mwai Kibaki, the man who would rise to power several decades later had started his politics here. He got into a public spat with his political rival – a woman – and chose never to engage in city politics again. He returned to Othaya. Is Dr. Kidero following suit?
Dr. Kidero nurses presidential ambition. To succeed. He is better off with a solid ethnic bloc. He has deeply tainted his corporate sector credentials because of his inability to ‘turn around’ Nairobi. Some of the bottlenecks are not his own creation. With a good PR and a great message, he can get to Homa Bay and argue his case to the Luos. And if they – Luos of South Nyanza – have business for him, he can easily win. And yes, he is several times better than the current ruler there – one Cyprian Awiti.
In fact, if you are keen, some of the MPs who coalesce around him come from South Nyanza, meaning Kidero’s game, if on, is truly on.
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