In my previous role as a newspaper editor, it was part of my job to identify elected leaders who were willing to write regular opinion columns and persuade them to be contributors to the Star.
Old habits die hard, and although I no longer have any such responsibility, I all the same find myself assessing the opinion pages of all the mainstream newspapers to see if there is any interesting article written by a politician currently in office.
Incidentally, finding time to write insightful opinion pieces while deeply immersed in the stormy seas of elective politics is no easy task. Many would love to do it: but somehow, they just never find the time, or else run out of ideas after just a few such essays.
And as far as I am aware there are only four Kenyan politicians who have pulled this off for any protracted period.
Of these, three are currently serving as governors: Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o of Kisumu county; Kiraitu Murungi of Meru county and Ndiritu Muriithi of Laikipia county. The other is Koigi Wamwere, former MP for Subukia.
For now, what I would like to draw attention to is a point that Governor Muriithi has been repeatedly emphasising in a series of essays dedicated to outlining what may be defined as “the Central Kenya mindset, priorities, and expectations” as concerns the upcoming 2022 general election.
And in my reading of his views, although he does not say so explicitly, he is keen to demolish a widespread assumption – dominant in other parts of the country – that Central Kenya has an obsessive attachment to the presidency.
Viewed superficially, this is the question that arises: If the Mount Kenya region is not so obsessed with the presidency, then how is it that this region has provided three of the four presidents we have had thus far?
But as the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin liked to point out, getting to the essence of any issue requires not so much seeking the right answers, as starting with the right question.
And in this case, the better question is, “Why is it that the one region which has provided three of the four presidents we have had thus far – and therefore, presumably, had the best experience of all the benefits believed to flow into any president’s political bedrock – is willing to more or less sit out the 2022 presidential election?”
A good parallel here would be from the world of football. I am no great fan of the sport, but do know from newspaper headlines that, for example, Gor Mahia football club has won the Kenyan Premier League more often than any other Kenyan football club.
And like with other football teams around the world, Gor Mahia fans have an obsessive attachment to their team – more than equal to the hysterical political passions we see unleashed during election campaigns here in Kenya.
Such passions are not transferable: you cannot tell a Gor Mahia fan that his team is sitting out the next football season and ask him to support AFC Leopards, or Bandari FC instead.
And yet in the current political cycle, that is more or less what is happening.
What we see now from the Central Kenyan voters – previously much maligned as being irreversibly obsessed with having “one of their own” occupy State House – is much the same political hysteria as we have seen in the past. Only this time this support is directed mostly towards the Deputy President William Ruto, and substantially towards the former PM Raila Odinga – neither of whom is indigenous to that region.
In Governor Muriithi’s writings, there is an explanation for this: his point is that “the people of the mountain” are primarily interested in having a government that facilitates entrepreneurship so businesses may thrive and jobs may be created.
That their focus – after having provided three of our last four presidents – is on economic opportunity and political stability – and not political prestige.
As it happens, economic opportunity and political stability are what the rest of the country also wants.
Only there is still a misguided view in most parts that the road to sustainable regional development, runs through the immaculate lawns of State House.