A fresh row is brewing between the Speaker of the National Assembly Moses Wetang’ula and Trans Nzoia governor George Natembeya over a new call for unity among the Luhya nation that is being championed by the governor.
Natembeya, a former provincial administrator who was elected governor in the 2022 general election, has been crusading for a new Luhya unity under the Tawe movement, a clarion call to say no to the established political order in the region.
Tawe, is the Luhya word for no, a phrase that the governor has adopted to rally the populace against the established political leadership in western Kenya which he says has taken advantage of voters over the years.
And in his campaigns, the governor has roped in Wetang’ula, who is the leader of the Ford Kenya party and who is one of the senior most political leaders in western Kenya.
Also included in the supremacy battle, is prime cabinet secretary and foreign affairs cabinet secretary Musalia Mudavadi, another senior leader from the western Kenya region.
The Trans Nzoia governor argues that his latest campaign is aimed at re-establishing the political order and fighting for the interests of the electorates who, despite their numerical strength during elections, continue to suffer from the effects of poor leadership.
The DAP-Kenya deputy party leader argues that the Luhya community has suffered years of neglect, poverty and unemployment even when some of their senior most politicians continue to occupy some of the most influential political seats in the country.
“You go to the villages, people are living the same way. They are affected by jiggers, they can’t take their kids to school, unemployment levels are very high,” Natembeya said in a recent media interview in April.
“Ours is a call a call to people to reject all the bad things that have affected our community including bad leadership, poverty, nepotism, tribalism, politics of violence, all those things that are bad. We want to reject them. You look at our community level we have normalised the normal,” he added.
So aggressive has the governor been in his campaigns that in March this year, a group of his supporters were involved in a clash with the supporters of Wetang’ula during a funeral in Goseta, Trans Nzoia County.
The two groups clashed during the burial ceremony of the wife of former nominated member of county assembly Phillip Nyongesa, the late Sandra Nyongesa, forcing police to intervene in what some perceived as a supremacy battle over the region’s political kingship.
The chaos, was the first time in months that the two leaders were sharing a podium. Both Wetangula and Natembeya have not been seeing eye-to-eye, and even openly commented on the Mulembe nation unity and the battle for a kingpin.
But while the governor insists that the tawe movement is nothing but a call to hold leaders in the region to account and to fight for the welfare of residents, some of his critics have accused him of malice, insisting that Natembeya is only using the platform to advance his political agenda.
Kilifi North MP Owen Baya believes that the county boss has been on a campaign to dethrone the current crop of senior Luhya leadership and elevate himself to the position.
“He (Natembeya) has been preparing to face Wetangula in a dual that is not civilized. We have young leaders in this country who have no values and one of the leaders that we see now is Natembeya.
“He is so power hungry that he thinks the only way to dominate the region and to grasp power is to use the goons that we saw in that funeral in March,” said Baya, who is also the deputy leader of the majority party in Parliament.
Other critics such as Bungoma governor Ken Lusaka, also believe that the Trans Nzioa governor is only on a quest to accumulate political influence in the western Kenya region.
Lusaka, who is also the Ford Kenya deputy party leader, in April said that the party will embark on a campaign with other party officials to mobilise grassroots support to neutralise Tawe movement’s influence in Western region.
“I want to urge Ford Kenya youths and officials to defend the party and dismiss Natembeya’s theatrics. I want to urge our youths to champion the party’s values and extend its reach at the grassroots level,” Lusaka told a group of Ford Kenya youths at his residence in Bungoma.
Natembeya however, insists that the campaigns will continue despite the opposition from senior leaders in the region, adding that
“There is a culture out there where we have got these predominant political figures, that if we go into leadership, you must line up behind them. Why don’t we chart a different political course?
“This ‘tawe’ movement is actually getting a lot of support. It resonates well with the local people, and even the political leaders who have been in the game for long, and want to look at politics in a different way,” the governor said.
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