NARC Kenya leader Martha Karua (centre) leads a Kikuyu dance with other Mt. Kenya leaders during the Limuru 3 meeting at the Jumuia Conference Centre in Kiambu on May 17, 2024.
From providing a stage for Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, to plotting the downfall of his vice-president, Jaramogi Oginga, Limuru has been the political pulse of Mount Kenya.
It is in Limuru that Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o staged his resistance plays. It is also where Mr Uhuru Kenyatta's presidential bid was launched in 2013
Last Thursday's attack on former deputy president Mr Rigathi Gachagua by goons as he attended a burial ceremony in Limuru constituency has once again shone a spotlight on the region's place in triggering political volcanos.
Over the years, when Mt Kenya political actors have converged in Limuru, the political arena has shaken, detentions have followed and, in extreme cases, death has followed.
Limuru Conferences, for Mt Kenya region actors, have always been deceitful and with far-reaching implications in defining and entrenching political loyalty to the ‘tribe’, pundits now say.
Under review by political and social pundits is Limuru- a constituency whose name is derived from the Maasai word Ilmur (donkey faeces). It has historically become the boiling pot of Mt Kenya's power struggle and nexus for national relevance for area people.
The town has hosted high-profile political activities coordinated by personalities with the resilience of a donkey.
The constituency that in the 2019 census had about 160,000 people and 93,000 registered voters in 2022 is dubbed as some sort of radicalisation zone for Mt Kenya's politicians. It is in Limuru where the people are mobilised first for a regional course. They use the town as a launching pad for the national power contest.
In September 2003, the then Mungiki sect chairman Mr Maina Njenga hosted two sitting MPs in Limuru town where he publicly offered them snuff in solidarity with Mt Kenya youths, who they said, were being persecuted by security agents.
The sect had orchestrated a wave of bloody attacks in various parts of the country, ultimately leading to a brutal crackdown by the government.
Kikuyu Council of Elders Chairman Mr Wachira Kiago lamented that "with time, Limuru has become synonymous with cultural and political abuses as opposed to the initial script where famous progressive declarations would be made.
"This is the place where in the mid-1970s, celebrated author Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o, featuring Mr Ngugi wa Mirii, staged the famous play Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want) that depicted excesses of post-independence government," Mr Kiago said.
He added that the controversial play that was first publicly staged in 1977 at Kamiriithu shrine ran for six weeks before it was shut down by the government. Both playwrights were arrested and detained without trial for one year.
Self-rule
"The play that was deliberately scripted in Gikuyu language to sensitise our people that all was not well, that the independence goals of self-rule had been hijacked and replaced with post-independence colonialism where biases, oppression, corruption and insensitivity had gained currency as governance tragedy," he said.
It is in the same constituency that the founding father of the nation Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his allies staged a political demolition against his nemesis, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
A prominent Gikuyu elder Mr Joseph Kaguthi, who then worked as a junior administrator in the Kenyatta regime, recalled that "Limuru became the epicentre of Mzee Kenyatta's power consolidation venue where he used then Justice and Constitution Minister Tom Mboya to plot Mr Odinga's fall".
According to Mr Kaguthi, Mr Mboya was dispatched by State House on March 12, 1966, to hold the ruling party Kanu's National Delegates Council which was dubbed as Limuru I conference that helped 'Mt Kenya mafia', a group around Jomo Kenyatta, to remove Mr Oginga as deputy party leader and replace him with Mr Lawrence Sagini.
Just like Mr Gachagua, Mr Oginga, who was vice president between December 12, 1964 and April 14, 1966, was being schemed against in Limuru to fall.
Mr David Goldsworthy in his book, Tom Mboya: The Man Kenya Wanted to Forget describes what bred the pioneer Limuru Conference that was engineered by powerful men in Kenyatta’s Kanu government.
The destruction caused by unknown persons during a funeral attended by former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
He writes that the movers of the conference that was camouflaged as the Kanu National Delegates Council meeting was planned by former Attorney-General Charles Njonjo, Njenga Mungai, Mbiyu Koinange, James Gichuru and Gikonyo Kiano – with the express agenda to tame Vice President Odinga and his loyalists.
President Ruto is also being seen as keen to commence a de-whipping spree against Gachagua loyalists where already Laikipia Senator John Kinyua has since been removed as a commissioner in the Parliamentary Service Commission and replaced with Nyeri Senator Mr Wahome Wamatinga.
“The sources of conflict (between Kenyatta and Oginga men, same as those playing out between Gachagua and Ruto) were of regional and ethnic interest, ambition for presidential succession, land distribution, land use, development planning and Kenya’s relationships with the great powers,” Goldsworthy writes in part.
The antagonism led to the Mt Kenya mafia fearing that--similar fears being cited around Gachagua-- Oginga was getting too powerful and schemer hence necessitating “lead up to the infamous Limuru Conference where the fate of Oginga and his lieutenants was sealed”.
Three years after he was 'used' to finish Mr Oginga in Limuru, Mr Mboya was assassinated, defining how Limuru political activities can be savage.
Mr Kaguthi said the attack against Gachagua while in Limuru and a month after he was impeached and replaced by Prof Kithure Kindiki both as deputy president and also ruling party UDA's deputy leader is synonymous with Limuru being used to stage high-stake battles in the region.
After Kenyatta managed to use Mboya in Limuru to bring down Oginga, massive oathing ceremonies were rolled out binding Central region people against ever supporting Oginga, his allies and sympathisers to political leadership.
These oaths are cited as the biggest hindrance that saw Mt Kenya refuse to support Mr Raila Odinga in his presidential bid that was being fronted by Kenyatta's son, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta.
It is the same constituency that was used to host the Limuru II conference that was held on March 22, 2012, and convened by Mt Kenya’s Gikuyu, Embu and Meru Association backed up by area clergy and politicians.
The core agenda was to endorse one of their own to vie for the presidency. They settled on Uhuru Kenyatta to be their flag bearer in the 2013 presidential polls.
Mr Kenyatta's coronation and his acceptance speech on April 17, 2012, during a convention dubbed Limuru II (B) conference, set him on the path to winning the presidency in 2013.
At the time, activists Mr Hassan Omar (current UDA Party Secretary General ) and Mr Ngunjiri Wambugu (now Gachagua's political aide) believably under the sponsorship of those opposed to Kenyatta's meteoric rise showed up and delivered hard-hitting speeches.
They warned that the Agikuyu community would never rule the country again. In what mirrors the Gachagua attack where a group of more than 100 youths infiltrated the burial ceremony in Bibirioni village, the Mungiki sect led by its then chairman Maina Njenga attempted to disrupt the meeting.
The meeting brought together elders from Mt Kenya and their counterparts from Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana and Samburu (Kamatusa) as the 2013 contest ticket between Mr Kenyatta and Dr William Ruto (UhuRuto) gained shape.
The then GEMA chairman Archbishop Lawi Imathiu threatened to curse Mr Njenga, leading him to withdraw his youths from the venue.
The meeting went ahead to unveil Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto as their presidential contest ticket. When former Vice President George Saitoti went against the Limuru declaration and opted to oppose Mr Kenyatta in the 2013 presidential election, he suspiciously died in a helicopter crash in June 2012.
Former Limuru MP Peter Mwathi on Saturday told Nation.Africa that "our constituency is now being misused through the use of proscribed gangs to breach the peace in the name of political competition".
He said those who did not believe in Mr Kenyatta's candidacy in 2013 and attempted to use violence in peaceful gatherings appear to be the inspiration for those who attacked Mr Gachagua.
"Just like Mr Kenyatta was the man of the moment in 2012, so is Mr Gachagua today. Those opposed to Gachaguas rise have clearly shown that they will stop at nothing to run him down," Mr Mwathi said.
Limuru III was convened on May 17, 2024, by Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Alliance luminaries in the Mt Kenya region under the clarion call One Mountain One Voice which Mr Gachagua was widely reported to have financially supported.
Led by Narc Kenya party leader Martha Karuaand Jubilee Party Secretary General Mr Jeremiah Kioni, their key agenda was to lead a cry against what they termed as President Ruto’s bad governance, especially about alleged draconian taxation policies.
Other key points that emanated from the conference were about Mt Kenya unity, the One-Man-One-Shilling resource allocation formula, the One-Man-One-Vote principle of representation as well as formation of a Mt Kenya political party for the 2027 General Elections to kick out President Ruto.
A retired former Spy Agency officer from Mt Kenya told Nation.Africa that “Limuru conferences have always been a national security threat since they usually come up with political activities and projects that affect other regions and the presidency which is a national issue”.
“Many times, you hear politicians from Mt Kenya region ask why their community meetings attract public outcry from all corners but it is because those meetings discuss how they will seize and consolidate state power to their benefit while that power belongs to all,” the officer said.
