The undoubted first Akamba kingpin who many regarded as an ‘illiterate genius’ for his lack of academic qualifications but his knowledge and wisdom will be celebrated today in his 20th anniversary since he died in 2004.
The Ukambani leaders led by Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, his political mentee, and the Opposition leaders are expected to grace the anniversary which will be held at Mwala Sub-County, in a function that will unite all the Akamba leaders despite their political differences.
Although illiterate, Mutisya’s many talents and witty in nature made up for his academic inadequacies and was respected and revered by all the Akamba leaders. He mentored political careers and destroyed others at his own will.
Some of the leaders who Mutisya nurtured included Kalonzo while those he thought undermined him, like David Musila, he destroyed.
Both remembers Mutisya as an influential person who was so close to first President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta only to perfect that to Mzee Kenyatta’s successor second President Daniel Moi becoming not only his bosom but close friend while to many he was his ‘choir member’ due to his sycophancy.
Mutisya, Kariuki Chotara, Ezekiel Barngetuny’, Shariff Nassir and Wilson Leitich were known to be Mzee Moi’s proud yet trusted lieutenants and court jesters who made their wars Moi’s and fought them viciously.
While remembering Mutisya, Kalonzo, described him as ‘an embodiment of servant leadership’ who although did not have formal education, sponsored the education to poor but bright students, the attributes that Kalonzo said earned him the name ‘Nau’ meaning father while at the same time coinciding with the New Akamba Union (Nau) a political association he formed in 1961 which was formed to cut Paul Ngei’s African Peoples Party’s wings.
According to Kalonzo, Mutisya’s political influence in Ukambani was so huge that after the 1997 elections, the community had a record of five Ministers, and held curial security dockets such as the Special Branch (which is now commonly known as the National Intelligence) the Commissioner of Police.
“He used his close association with President Moi to negotiate on behalf of his community, whenever he was given a huge lump of money, he used it to sponsor children and not for his personal gain. Although our region was not in government, we have five Ministers who included Nyiva Mwendwa (Gender and Culture) Phillip Mbithi (Head of Public Service) Joseph Mulinge (Lands), Johnson Makau (Information) Phillip Kilonzo among others,” Kalonzo told The Standard.
He reminisced how Mutisya ‘saved’ him from being sacked by President Moi after four Ministers joined hands with one of the living Kamba politicians and approached Moi asking him to sack him for claims of being incompetent and failure.
“He got wind of the matter and approached the second President and stopped the political machination that would have gotten me fired form the Cabinet, the four had joined together to flip my wings as they thought I was gaining ground politically and had the support of Mutisya who believed in my leadership,” Kalonzo remembered.
It was Mutisya who also prevented the sacking of Chief Justice Kitili Mwendwa by Mzee Kenyatta in 1970 when he was falsely accused alongside Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and major General Joseph Ndolo, the commander of the Army of plotting a ‘coup’ against Kenyatta’s administration a move that prompted protests to sack him.
“Mwendwa’s brother Ngala Mwendwa made the remarks ‘blood is thicker than water’ in support of his brother and convinced Mutisya to take a delegation to Gatundu where Mzee Kenyatta pardoned the Chief Justice, that is how influential he was,” said Kalonzo.
At one time in 1998, the Azimio official recounted, the teachers’ strike had proved to be the toll order for him as he had just been transferred from Foreign Affairs to the Education docket with Ambrose Adongo, secretary-general of the Kenya National Union of Teachers calling for the strike that disrupted the beginning of exams only for Mutisya to help him without his knowledge.
“At night, he mobilized the teacher union officials led by Adongo and took them to Mzee Moi at State without my knowledge only to receive the President’s call in the middle of the night informing me that he was with the ‘big boys’ courtesy of Mutisya and the following morning there was no teachers’ strike,” recalled Kalonzo.
However, David Musila narrates the other side of Mutisya after he influenced his transfer as Nyeri Provincial Commissioner to the far flung North Eastern.
In his Season of Hope book, Musila explained how Mutisya interpreted his development projects in Ukambani to a ploy to undermine him and how senior government officials who were more learned sat on one side while Mutisya with none of credentials ‘and not even a combination of our excellent academic credentials and high offices put together’ but all revered them.
Musila was referring to an incident where Kitili Mwendwa convened a meeting between him, then Attorney General Matthew Muli and Mutisya with a view of reconciling them to prevent Mutisya from ‘destroying his career’.
“During the discussions, the old man (Mutisya) levelled many accusations against me most of which had been made by the politicians who wanted me out of Central Province such as lack of respect to Ukambani leaders and claims of fighting the President’s supporters in Central, land grabbing claims in Kitui and failure of me to acknowledge his befitted status of Kamba leader which were untrue,” Musila said in his book.
It was Musila’s refusal to apologize that earned him the transfer which was made through Kenya Times, but he declined because he felt it had been made out of the wrong reasons.
Mutisya was nominated to Parliament in 1974 by Mzee Kenyatta alongside Njenga Karume of the Gikuyu Embu Meru Associations (Gema) for 18 years and later appointed by the late Moi as the chairperson for National Water Conservation and Pipeline Company as an appreciation of his political acumen.
Her died in 2004