Stop attacks against me, Kiunjuri tells President

 

The Service Party (TSP) leader Mwangi Kiunjuri now says he will not sit back and fold his hands as President Uhuru Kenyatta "tarnishes his name" in political rallies as the bad blood between the two leaders escalates.

Mr Kiunjuri, who was Agriculture Cabinet Secretary in the Jubilee administration, told the Nation that he has never been a fan of politics that revolves around mudslinging.

But he was quick to add that he will not hesitate to speak out should the “need” arise.

“I have never attacked anybody including the President but if they continue to attack me, I also have some things to say,” Mr Kiunjuri told the Nation Tuesday.

‘I respect leaders’

“But I do not want to go that route. I respect leaders and I do not want to fight anybody. The journey I want to go is that of gentlemanly politics. Politics of name-calling belongs to the dustbin,” he said.

His comments come after President Uhuru Kenyatta, while addressing Mount Kenya MCAs at the Sagana State Lodge to support constitutional amendments through the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), accused Mr Kiunjuri of failing to deliver during his stint in the Agriculture docket.

President Kenyatta, without mentioning names, said that some leaders had been unable to execute the jobs he had given them as he commended current Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya for clearing the rot in the ministry, in a direct jibe at the TSP leader.

Unfair criticism

However, Mr Kiunjuri did not take the President’s scolding lying down, even as he accused Murang’a County Woman Representative Sabina Chege of unfair criticism.

“One thing that we will not allow the President to do is to push us into a corner and continue tarnishing our names. That will not happen. That cannot happen,” Mr Kiunjuri said when he spoke on Saturday in Tharaka-Nithi during the burial ceremony of the wife to the county’s former governor Samuel Ragwa.

Mr Kiunjuri is among a crop of leaders from the Mount Kenya region supporting Deputy President William Ruto’s presidential bid in 2022.

The others are Tharaka-Nithi Senator Kithure Kindiki, MPs Ndindi Nyoro (Kiharu), Kimani Ichung’wah (Kikuyu), Rigathi Gachagua (Mathira) and Moses Kuria (Gatundu South), among others.

Although Mr Kiunjuri has openly said that the BBI issue is not a priority for now, he has on several occasions urged the government to provide enough copies to the people so that they can read and make informed choices. 

President Kenyatta fired Mr Kiunjuri on January 14, 2020, while in Mombasa.

But, speaking Tuesday, Mr Kiunjuri accused the President of failing to divulge the reasons behind his dismissal.

Defended track record

He, nonetheless, defended his track record at the ministry, saying that he laid the foundation for a food secure Kenya in line with the President’s Big Four agenda and that the failure to actualise it cannot be blamed on him as he is no longer in office. 

“This government has a performance contract. Every minister has a performance contract and there are appraisals. If I was a non-performer, the President can show us,” said Mr Kiunjuri.

“During the State of the Nation address, you (President) said that in Agriculture there is nothing else you can do for now other than laying the foundation. I did the foundation and left it with you. I gave you the agriculture sector growth strategy,” the former CS said in an apparent challenge to the President to tell Kenyans what became of it.

Food security is among the four key economic pillars that President Kenyatta seeks to use to define his legacy when he retires in 2022 after serving his second and final term.

The other pillars are universal health coverage (UHC), affordable housing and manufacturing