One Kenya Alliance (OKA) principals Gideon Moi (Kanu), Musalia Mudavadi (ANC), Kalonzo Musyoka (Wiper), and Ford Kenya’s Moses Wetang’ula are set to meet the Mt Kenya billionaires as the search for President Uhuru successor gains momentum.
Mount Kenya Foundation (MKF) vice-chairperson Titus Ibui said the tycoons who previously aligned themselves to state-backed presidential candidates have kicked off the process of identifying the region’s preferred candidate as instructed by President Uhuru.
Speaking in the second meeting with ODM leader Raila Odinga, Ibui said they have lined up five candidates and that the OKA principals are expected to appear before them on Friday, October 1.
“So we have decided to listen to all the presidential candidates. On Friday we will meet (Musalia) Mudavadi, Kalonzo (Musyoka), (Gideon) Moi, and (Moses) Wetang’ula,” Ibui said.
It is after a series of the planned meetings that the group will retreat to State House for a meeting with the President to tell him their preferred candidate for the 2022 presidential election.
“This is the journey that we have started and once we are done we will go back to the President and tell him this is the person we want to succeed you,” he added.
However, Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto, whose relationship with his boss has deteriorated beyond irredeemable levels, has been excluded from the team tasked with identifying President Uhuru’s preferred successor.
But even as the OKA plans to meet President Kenyatta’s close advisers and financiers in 2017, the Mt Kenya billionaires appear to have settled on the former Prime Minister.
This was evident in the fact that Royal Media owner S.K Macharia indicated that ODM leader Raila Odinga is a safe pair of hands for the country.
“Without President Uhuru Kenyatta there would be no handshake. We salute him for that. We ask him to leave that handshake to good hands so that it can continue,” Macharia said.
Mt Kenya region is battling to play a huge role in who becomes the next president considering it will not produce any serious presidential candidate in 2022. This will be the first time since the introduction of multi-party elections in Kenya in the early 1990s.
