By Wainaina wa Ndung’u
Kiambu governor Kimani Wamatangi has opted to hold on a bit and watch the political horizon as he “keeps busy trying to fulfil his five-year pledges to the voters.”
Wamatangi who has also ruled out seeking re-election on a UDA ticket believes that there is a real risk of squandering almost a whole year of county development on reelection politicking.
While he has opted out of UDA as has done his counterparts Kiarie Badilisha in Nyandarua and Irungu Kang’ata in Murang’a, the Kiambu governor remains tight-lipped about his next political vehicle directly saying he has chosen to watch where the political tides head to before reaching his decision earliest by December but as late as March 2026.
“No other leader in this country has been persecuted by this government more than me. From malicious cases, freezing bank accounts, a failed shooting incident to demolition of my business premises. But we remain unbowed,” Wamatangi said recently at Mundoro in Gatundu South.
Wamatangi prefers to speak more of his development record in Kiambu but has also recently gained political mileage from the underdog label he has gained with the blame going to UDA regional bigwig and National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwah his close allies led by Thika Town MP Alice Ng’ang’a.
The Kiambu governor who was among the last Jubilee legislators (he was Kiambu senator and Senate Majority Leader) to jump ship into the UDA and benefit from the “yellow fever” in 2022 has attributed his woes in the ruling party to clashes over bids to steal county lands especially a 100-acre parcel in Thika surrendered by multinational Del Monte Kenya Limited.
In his tenure, he has faced two separate investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) but no prosecution yet, freeze of personal bank accounts, the infamous demolition of his high end car sale business at the Railways in Nairobi and constant humiliation by local UDA MPs.
Kang’ata and Gachagua are among the sympathetic politicians who have cited his tribulations as an indication of autocracy in UDA.
Yet, despite Wamatangi’s hesitation to indicate his next political destination, his county remains one of the few where Gachagua has unveiled a gubernatorial aspirant in a scheduled event
On April 16, the DCP unveiled land dealer John Mwaura Kogi who became the second such beneficiary in a ceremony attended by Gachagua after former CS Mithika Linturi was unveiled in Meru a month earlier.
