Death of Kabete MP hands ‘Baba Yao’ another political lifeline; hate
him, but his rowdy supporters egg him on. PHOTO | BD GRAPHIC |
NATION MEDIA GROUP
By EVELYN SITUMA
In Summary
- Kabete has offered Mr Waititu a political lifeline and a platform to take on Kiambu Governor William Kabogo.
When the results of the just concluded Kabete
by-elections were announced, Ferdinand Ndung’u Waititu stood up in a
flowered Nelson Mandela-like shirt and held up a fist in celebration. “I
don’t fear men,” he once said.
For the second time, he is to become a Member of Parliament in a by-election and after the death of the previous MP.
When he became the MP for Embakasi in 2008, he had
replaced Mugabe Were who had been killed during a carjacking incident
outside his Woodley Estate home. Three men were sentenced to death. This
time, he has replaced Kabete’s Edward Muchai who was gunned down in
Nairobi.
Kabete has offered Mr Waititu a political lifeline and a platform to take on Kiambu Governor William Kabogo.
After losing the 2013 gubernatorial elections in
Nairobi to Evans Kidero, there is little doubt that Mr Waititu has
decided to shift his political base to Kiambu where he has received
support of MPs opposed to Mr Kabogo.
Known by his followers as “Baba Yao”, Mr Waititu is
admired and loathed in equal measures. A man who once led youths to
pelt police with stones, Mr Waititu is least concerned about his image
and justified his actions later: “At that moment, that was the only
option.”
It was his quest for the Nairobi gubernatorial
seat, though, that caught everyone by surprise – even his The National
Alliance party which had other candidates such as former Town Clerk John
Gakuo and businessman Jimnah Mbaru. But despite attempts to have him
step down, Mr Waititu would not budge for a lesser seat as his rowdy
followers egged him on.
Finally, he lost and retreated into the court
corridors where he suffered a defeat in a petition at the Supreme Court
on technical grounds.
As the Embakasi MP, Mr Waititu had inherited a seat
that was once held by the late David Mwenje, a combative MP who once
took his goons to Parliament to teach the late Otieno Kajwang’ a lesson
after the Mbita MP allegedly bit Mr Mwenje in a scuffle.
Mr Waititu perfected the art of organising
demonstrations and taking on land grabbers in his constituency. His
followers loved the thrill— and many a times Mr Waititu was taken to
court.
Born in Kibera, Nairobi, the former welterweight
boxer (he always wanted to be a champion) attended Dagoretti High School
and then Kenya Polytechnic before proceeding to Siri Guru College in
India in 1985 for a BA degree in commerce. All this time, he was known
as Clifford Ndung’u and his certificates say as much.
It is this matter that forced Mr Waititu to call a
press conference to deny that he had “purchased his degrees” since his
national identity card has the name Ferdinard Ndung’u Waititu.
“This Waititu you look at as a hooligan valued
education more than 30 years ago and went to India. The reason I behave
the way I do is because I took a vow to always be on the side of my
Embakasi constituents,” he told a press conference, adding that “so many
people have two baptism names it is not a wonder that I have two. Why
is it only problematic for Waititu?”
Mr Waititu has always had a way of endearing
himself to people even when all odds seem to be against him. In 2002,
when the Opposition wave had taken over the country, he managed to
snatch the Njiru ward seat on a Kanu ticket as councillor.
“Out of the 55 wards in Nairobi, 53 of them were
won by Narc. Waititu and another councillor from Dagoretti were the only
two that were elected from the opposing side,” recalls Mutinda Kavemba,
a former aspirant in the Nairobi gubernatorial seat.
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