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Another wrong turn leaves Jeremiah Kioni in the cold
Suspended Jubilee Party Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni. How he is handling Azimio’s loss in the 2022 Presidential election has given political analysts fodder against him.
At 58, embattled Jubilee Party secretary general Jeremiah Kioni cannot be said to lack political wisdom yet it seems gasping for political instincts remains his good problem.
After he was first elected to parliament as Ndaragwa MP in 2007 on a Party of National Unity (PNU) party ticket, he made a decision that left many baffled. In 2013, he joined Musalia Mudavadi’s presidential bid as running mate.
It was a time when the Mt Kenya region was heading North with Uhuru Kenyatta as its kingpin and presidential flagbearer.
The Uhuru Kenyatta-William Ruto ticket won the race and Mr Kioni was to spend five years in the political cold. But come 2017, he won back his Ndaragwa seat under Jubilee Party whose leader was Uhuru Kenyatta.
In the run up to the 2022 General Election, Mr Kioni took another leap of political faith and identified himself with the Kieleweke wing of Jubilee Party that supported President Kenyatta’s handshake with ODM chief Raila Odinga.
Also Read: Jubilee Party suspends Murathe, Kioni
Mr Kioni was then appointed Jubilee Party Secretary General to help President Kenyatta sell Odinga’s candidature in Mt Kenya region.
Come the polls, Mt Kenya rebelled against President Kenyatta as Mr Odinga failed in his bid to climb the mountain.
“Looking at Mr Kioni in particular, he is a nice man, religious where he is a Presbyterian Church elder, a family man, a lawyer and a valuer. He has good oratory skills but he lacks one critical element of survival—instincts,” said Mt Kenya political analyst Prof Ngugi Njoroge.
But it is how Mr Kioni has continued to behave in the public after the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party lost at the ballot that has given political analysts fodder against him.
“Mr Kioni is our son here in Nyandarua. He is also a son of God and both man and God love him. But the way he has continued to behave in total disregard of our collective political passions and belonging calls for prayers to be dedicated to him. His is a chronology of goofing after goof and jumping from one mistake into the other. We will pray without ceasing for his soul,” said Nyandarua Woman Rep Faith Gitau.
Mr Kioni believes that Mr Odinga won in Mt Kenya, that all Jubilee Party aspirants won were it not that facemasks were used to rig them out and that Mr Kenyatta remains the most senior politician in the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru Association (Gema) electoral constituency.
“All Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) staff in Mt Kenya region wore facemasks so that when they directed voters to vote for Dr Ruto, their voices would be muffled. It was done discreetly,” he told Nation.Africa.
He said that “perhaps some can understand that we lost, but for me, it will take a long time to be convinced that it was a normal vote. It was an abnormal one”.
Even when the Jubilee Party’s National Executive Council (NEC) met in Nakuru on Friday and announced his suspension as Secretary General and the responsibilities handed over to Mr Kanini Kega in acting capacity, he still believes it is a joke.
“Mr Kioni is headed to being transformed into an ordinary voter attending Azimio public rallies in his personal capacity. He is not aware that even all the Jubilee elected members have since embraced Dr Ruto as the president and have vowed to cooperate with him. Mr Kioni is very busy digging himself deeper into a hole and that defines him—a man of consistent political mistakes,” said former Provincial administrator, Mr Joseph Kaguthi.
