We are four months away from the election. In your estimate, by what margin do you predict Raila will win the presidency and how will he achieve this? The other side has been saying its candidate will win by either 60 or 70 per cent.
I think Raila will win the presidency by between 60 to 65 per cent based on projected turnouts in his traditional bases as well as new ones. I am saying this because if you look at Nyanza as it were, he is going to have an overwhelming majority. Touring western with him, it is absolutely clear he will have it. Raila has always won in Nairobi despite the tough past elections. It is very apparent he has the Coast region.
It is also apparent that he has North Eastern and when you look at Eastern, with all the Ukambani leaders coming together, with Marsabit and Isiolo being counties that are fully supporting Raila with the former as well as current governors, you can clearly see that Eastern is behind him. This then leaves you with Rift Valley, where West Pokot, Turkana, Samburu, Nakuru, Narok and Kajiado are likely to produce Azimio candidates and we will also eat a big chunk of the base that is preserved for the other candidate. Rift Valley could end up between 30 to 40 per cent for him (Mr Odinga). That leaves you with Mt Kenya, the Central province that Raila has never received more than five per cent.
I can assure you that even as we speak, he is not at five per cent but a much higher rate, I think between 30 to 40 per cent and I believe when we go to elections, he will have passed 50 per cent which makes me believe he will have 60 to 65 per cent of the majority vote.
Do you see the possibility of a runoff?
Raila will win in round one.
In 2017, you attempted a comeback when you ran for governor of Nairobi but that did not work out. What made you run in Nairobi and not Murang’a where you had made a name when you were the MP for Gatanga?
Former Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth during the interview at his Nairobi office on April 8, 2022.
There was a lot of pressure from people in both Murang’a and Nairobi. Some were from very high echelons. I was very clear then that I wanted to support the politics of the day rather than get involved, but most of the people who came to talk to me felt that Nairobi was in very bad shape. I would ask them, why are you piling the pressure on me?
Being the capital city, bringing almost 60 per cent of our gross domestic product, there was a lot of persuasion. The people who approached me did so in good faith and they meant well but there were dark forces and they were very fearful of 2022 succession politics, that if I succeeded in Nairobi, I would close them out in 2022 and that is why the Jubilee nomination was marred with a lot of rigging and manipulation.
As a matter of fact, we produced evidence to show that we never lost the nomination of Nairobi. We did not. And after that, we just felt that the dark forces had an edge over the nomination process, controlling it from the party leadership. We said okay, we live to fight another day.
There are reports that you had been assured of the Nairobi governor Jubilee ticket but you were allegedly shortchanged by the DP who had taken charge of the nominations. What would you say was the DP’s role in your failure to capture the Jubilee ticket?
As I said, people who felt I would be the best bet for Nairobi convinced me and I got persuaded and they meant well. But as I said, there were dark forces that saw it as a 2022 succession and decided the best thing was to edge me out and I knew about it and I mentioned it to them. Truth be told, the choice they brought in took this county further down than it previously was. In fact, it took the President’s intervention with Nairobi Metropolitan Services to try to reinstate basic services.
Does that explain why you are in Azimio and not Kenya Kwanza?
No. I am working with a candidate who can do better for the country. I have nothing personal against anyone. But Raila Odinga will unite the country and move us forward.
Your critics point to your time at Kenya Re to claim that you cannot be trusted with public resources. They say you bankrupted it. Could you clear the air on this?
I served Kenya Re for only five years from 1997 to 2002. That is almost 20 years ago. There is always confusion between Kenya Re and Kenya National Assurance. It is Kenya National Assurance that went under, not Kenya Re. Kenya Re is a stock-listed company that is doing well. As late as last week Monday, your own paper carried the annual results where Kenya Re recorded Sh4 billion profit.
I do not know what people talk about because we have never had any formal issues or complaints of mismanagement and it is 20 years later. Let me also add this, at the time, when Moi wanted to dispose of Kenya Re and we were there as a management team, we worked behind the scenes with the current Kisumu governor, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, to go to court to stop the privatisation. What I see on social media is a total misrepresentation of the facts but the truth never dies. That is the truth and they can verify it.
Former Gatanga MP Peter Kenneth during the interview at his Nairobi office on April 8, 2022.
In other words, all these claims of mismanaging Kenya Re are false?
They are unfounded. When someone says a company is bankrupt yet it has never been bankrupt and is declaring Sh4 billion profit, what are we really saying? Facts are there for anyone who wants to see. Most of these lies are coming from the disgruntled motormouths, if I may say, using it to propagate unfair criticism. When we were needed, as I said, I worked with Prof Nyong’o, and we stopped its sale because I felt it was being sold way below its value. Prof Nyong’o is alive, you can confirm with him. It also came up in the 2013 presidential debate and I was surprised that some opponents did not understand the difference between Kenya Re and Kenya National Assurance. (Laughs)
You have interests in the financial and insurance sectors and reports suggest that those interests extend to DR Congo, Tanzania and Rwanda. Could you talk about this, including an estimation of your net worth?
Well, my family’s company has interests in the insurance and banking sectors. Let us say in the financial sector, and I am very happy today that DRC is being admitted to EAC because we have offices in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi but this is within a bigger shareholding grouping. So, yes, I do have some interests in those sectors in Kenya and five other African countries, mostly within the EAC plus Zambia. I think also, that way, we carry with us the good name of Kenya wherever we are.
The second part of the question?
Well, I have never sat down to calculate. You know it is un-African to count your cattle. That is what they say. I have never sat down to calculate that and all the years as a State officer, I did my declarations and they were the true declarations. But I have never sat down to quantify.
You were once the KFF (now FKF) chairman. When you see the current events concerning football, do you ever wish you could make a return and help fix it? What ails our football?
You know life is a passage. When you go through a rite of passage, you do not go back, you only encourage those who come after you. We had a very successful stint at KFF.
I was chairman between 1996 and 2000. We were able to bring commercialised marketing to football, we gave a serious stab for a World Cup slot in 1997 going to the 1998 World Cup. We also gave Kenya visibility in the Fifa when I served on its committee and we never had any issues in the four years of our term.
We never had issues with the government nor cases of mismanagement. I believe I served in a very open and transparent manner that is very dear to my heart on how I run my issues. But over the years, the people who have come in, some have disappointed. For football to grow and develop, it needs to be played on the field and not in board rooms.
Every time football is played in the board rooms, it is at the expense of the field and that is why you find we are not doing well in East and Central Africa and Africa tournaments and championships.
Harambee Stars is no longer a serious challenge to other African teams including small teams like Comoros. But I still go and watch football.
I thought that the action the minister took would have brought the stakeholders to the table to think afresh and help in mobilisation so that things are back to normal as soon as possible so that the Fifa ban is lifted but things have not worked well.
The stakeholders need to invest in nurturing young talent. Everything starts at a very young age. We must have youth centres, and we must have coaches at those facilities so that we develop talents from a very young age.
But what we have been doing is nurturing old material. When I say old, it is not in age, but it is somebody who is now finishing his O-levels and has a career to look at. If you look at all great footballing nations, they start nurturing at age six. We start ours at 16 or 17, so we are a little late. Origi is in Liverpool today because he was developed at a very young age in Brussels.
So, we still have a very long way to go?
Yes. But I would encourage the minister to see how normalisation can take place in a faster manner. I was happy that the 47 branches met two weeks ago and resolved to do away with the NEC and have elections for new officials. That was a good move towards normalisation. BY DAILY NATION