Wasted promise? The rise and fall of Peter Kenneth
Former presidential aspirant Peter Kenneth.
What you need to know:
- Everything appeared to be going well for Mr Kenneth when he was MP for Gatanga. The daily news about him was how he had delivered development projects and made the constituency a classic study of what a progressive legislator can do.
- The ideal person that President Kenyatta confessed he helped shop for ended up being Martha Karua. Once again, Mr Kenneth missed his target.
When Ethiopian poet and writer Hama Tuma wrote "The Case of the Prison Monger", he might as well have been referring to the likes of Murang'a politician Peter Kenneth in the opening paragraph of that short story.
Mr Tuma wrote that "great expectations make frustrated men". And that might be the best description of Mr Kenneth's life so far in politics since he was first elected Gatanga MP in 2002.
"Our parents, being realists, teach us from the outset not to yearn for big things – when you stretch up to reach higher things you drop what you had under your arms," Mr Tuma wrote.
Mr Tuma urged ambitious men and women to "hold on to what you have and be satisfied since the more you want, the more chance you will lose what little you already have", illustrating what has become of Mr Kenneth – a wasted promise.
Everything appeared to be going well for Mr Kenneth when he was MP for Gatanga. The daily news about him was how he had delivered development projects and made the constituency a classic study of what a progressive legislator can do.
He even managed to make Gatanga a more urban constituency that had its own water and sanitation company, Gaswasco, and an independent power supply line. Gatanga, touted as having music as its cash crop, was on a level of its own in Murang'a.
With a history of being substantially rich, Mr Kenneth's main worry as MP was not about himself – as he had, and still has, successful money-minting business empires with partners stretching from Kenya to Europe and Asia.
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His star appeared to be made for a brighter shine every dawn, until 2012 when some strange political bug bit him. Out of the blue, Mr Kenneth decided that he had come of age and had the mettle to contest the position of Mt Kenya kingpin and the presidency.
No one in Murang'a politics can give an exact analysis of what got into Mr Kenneth's mind. And to signify the negative impact of what got into his mind, he has not rediscovered his political star since.
It happened that President Mwai Kibaki was retiring in 2013 after serving two terms, and a transition General Election was to be held that year.
In line to succeed him in Mt Kenya was Uhuru Kenyatta. But Mr Kenyatta had a big problem in the International Criminal Court (ICC). He had been accused in September 2011 alongside five other Kenyans of planning and executing crimes against humanity in the 2007/8 post-election violence that killed 1,500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
All indications among laymen were that Mr Kenyatta would be banned from contesting and it was suspected Mr Kenneth was exploiting that chance to package himself as the alternative son of the Mountain to install himself in the throne of greatness.
Indeed, frowning upon Mr Kenneth’s move, famed benga musician John De Mathew, who was reputed as the area’s musical prophet, released a song that spoke about the emergence of political hyenas in the Agikuyu community who were following a man whose hands were swinging by his sides as he walked with the hope that they would fall off.
Mr Kenneth's face featured prominently in the video of the song, but not as the good boy of the message being aired.
His emergence on the stage did not go down well with Mt Kenya seasoned politicians, such the then Interior minister John Njoroge Michuki, who, in agitation, declared that Mr Kenyatta was the unanimous choice for the throne of area kingpin and the presidential candidate.
“If you ask me,” said the no-nonsense minister, “anyone who wants to work with us must go through Uhuru Kenyatta, who is the undisputed Agikuyu leader. Otherwise we are going to fight you politically.”
Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth addresses a campaign rally in Trans Mara August 4, 2012.
In a quick rejoinder that baffled many in the region, Mr Kenneth came out to publicly denounce Michuki's sentiments. Pointing at the space slightly above his right ear with his index finger, he alluded to the possibility that those issuing such statements were either nuts or senile.
Now, Michuki was not your ordinary man in the Mt Kenya region. He was widely respected and loved, and Mr Kenneth scored his ever lower political marks in that single statement. But he soldiered on.
Mr Kenyatta was not barred from contesting the presidency and he went ahead and won. Mr Kenneth managed 72,786 votes, accounting for 0.60 percent of the national tally.
Many in Murang'a believe that had Mr Kenneth applied due diligence in his political math, he would have contested the Murang'a governor seat in 2013.
Also Read: Uphill task for Peter Kenneth in Mt Kenya
"It is a known fact that had Mr Kenneth vied for Murang'a governor, Mr Mwangi wa Iria would not have contested and had he run, he would not have won. Most likely,” says area political analyst Prof Ngugi Njoroge.
“But Mr Kenneth took a bigger step than his pants could allow and graduated himself from among the best MPs to the political cold room."
He added: "Mr Kenneth was the best Murang'a could have thought of as its governor and would have been voted for in a fanatical way ... but as Mr Tuma said, he stretched his hands to go for higher things and dropped what was under his arms."
It is argued that it was not too late for Mr Kenneth to reinvent his political wheel in Murang'a in the subsequent elections of 2017 had he decided to vie for area governor or even for the Senate seat.
But as it was, he once again decided that Murang'a politics were too rural and he vied for Nairobi governor, where he was thoroughly thrashed by Mike Mbuvi Sonko. Political pride and unbridled ambition appeared to be Mr Kenneth's driving force.
At the time, President Kenyatta appeared to support him for the Nairobi seat but Mr Sonko proved to be too grounded to budge.
After Mr Kenneth’s loss, he appeared to canvass for a Cabinet post, and Irungu Kang'ata and Sabina Chege appeared to be his mouthpieces then.
Dr Kang'ata was a senator and Ms Chege a woman rep, and in several and frequent statements, they reminded President Kenyatta that it was not fair to keep such a son of Murang'a in the political cold longer.
As the 2022 succession elections neared, Mr Kenneth appeared to dream again that he was made for political greatness. He had aligned himself with the Handshake politics between Mr Kenyatta and Raila Odinga.
To observers, Mr Kenneth seemed convinced that his second chance to become Mt Kenya kingpin had presented itself with the looming retirement of President Kenyatta.
"Many are saying that there is national fatigue for yet another Mt Kenya presidency. That is not true and no person [or] community ... stands barred by any law to contest as long as he is qualified," Mr Kenneth said in 2020.
He was then to spend most of his time in 2021 strategising for the 2022 elections. He managed to create two scenarios in Mt Kenya – that he was being groomed to succeed the President or to become Mr Odinga’s running mate.
With time, President Kenyatta started showing clear signals that he had settled on Mr Odinga as his preferred successor, throwing Mr Kenneth to campaigning for the running mate slot.
Once again, had he repackaged himself to join Murang'a politics, he would have easily fit in, especially for the governor or Senate seat.
"But the problem was his political leanings in the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party. Had he detached himself from that formation and joined the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), he would have given any of his [likely] competitors in Murang'a politics a competition nightmare," says Maragua politician Edwin Murira.
Referred to as Murang'a's white man – because of his complexion and lack of a Gikuyu name – all along his political goofs, hits and misses, he still retained some clout in the hearts of his grassroots supporters.
Mr Murira says if Mr Kenneth had joined UDA, he would have complicated Dr Kang'ata's chances of becoming governor or even Joe Nyútú's Senate bid, both of whom won on the party’s tickets. It was also said that had he thrown his lot with Dr William Ruto's UDA, he would have featured in a major way in the race for running mate.
But Mr Kenneth soldiered on in his Azimio loyalty, regularly briefing Nation.Africa that "our unity around President Kenyatta will leave us in good stead and with me helping him craft a winning formula, we cannot get it wrong".
His message was that "take this to the bank, Odinga will win ... no question about it and what remains is for Mt Kenya to decide whether it sought to be in government or in the opposition".
He started going around Murang'a trying to consolidate his support for the running mate slot and encountered huge stumbling blocks.
Former Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth.
"Outgoing Governor Mwangi wa Iria with his Usawa Kwa Wote party had declared [his] ambition to vie for the presidency,” Mr Murira said.
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“Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro and his Kandara counterpart Ms Alice Wahome were in UDA and had become firebrands in converting Murang'a County to [the] Dr Ruto discipleship.
“Maragua MP Mary wa Maua was flip-flopping ... Mr Kenneth could not unite his home county and the rest of Mt Kenya was not according him any significance."
It was not long before this became his Waterloo, because in trying to assemble a winning team for Mr Odinga, someone to deputise him had to be someone who could beat the existing dynamics at the time.
Needed was someone who could induce robust freshness and a leverage – someone who could disturb Dr Ruto and his UDA influence. That person was not Mr Kenneth.
The ideal person that President Kenyatta confessed he helped shop for ended up being Martha Karua. Once again, Mr Kenneth missed his target.
But he stuck in Azimio when his best bet would have been to bolt and join UDA and bargain.
He had expected Mr Odinga to win the August 9 vote, in all his public declarations painting the picture that the deal was done about the defeat of Dr Ruto and the fall of all UDA aspirants in Mt Kenya.
In a sign that Mr Kenneth consistently lacked political betting instincts, when the vote was called, Mr Odinga had lost to Dr Ruto and only two Jubilee aspirants in Mt Kenya survived.
As he starts his 11th year in the political cold, he is a man who had all acres of opportunity to remain in elected posts uninterrupted, but it was not the case, as he appeared fixated on the notion that his league was with the big boys at the national level. And if he had to choose anything local, he believed it had to be in the capital city.
To his diehard supporters, Mr Kenneth is “generous, sharp, well cultured and a perfectionist performer”, while his critics say he is “socially selective, sensitive to criticism and highly secretive”.
Born on November 27, 1965, Mr Kenneth is described by former Gatanga MP Nduati Ngugi as “detribalised, non-parochial, tested and certified to be an inborn leader".
Mr Ngugi lost his Gatanga seat to Edward Muriu (UDA) for sticking with Jubilee, even as many agreed that he was an effective legislator.
Mr Kenneth was appointed assistant minister in the ministry of co-operative development in 2003 before moving to finance docket in the same capacity in 2005. In 2008, he was moved to the ministry of state for planning, national development and Vision 2030.
Before those appointments, he was chairman of the Kenya Football Federation in the late 1990s, and a Fifa committee member. He had also worked at the Africa Reinsurance Corporation, the Industrial Development Bank and the Zep Reinsurance Company.
When the next election comes calling in 2027, Mr Kenneth, father of two, will be 61 years old, and 66 in 2032, when age will start urging him to retire. Pundits will wait to see how he will utilise those 10 remaining years to repackage his broken political fortunes.
