Mutahi Kagwe, the cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Health has hinted that his colleague Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Interior Fred Matiang’i will vie for the presidency in the coming general election. Mr. Kagwe urged the Gusii people to support their son for the top job in the country.
The cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Health was speaking in Kisii Town while assessing the preparedness of the Kisii Level 5 Hospital to deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases. Mr. Kagwe will tour an additional five counties in Western Kenya and Nyanza region to check their readiness in dealing with a cases of coronavirus that are currently skyrocketing in the country. Mr. Kagwe used parables to convey his point by stating that “if you see a bulging stomach of a woman, you need not be told she is expecting. You know that a baby is on the way”. He then said, “if you fail to support the pregnant woman and then she loses the pregnancy, you will have to blame yourself”.
Mr. Kagwe is not the only cabinet secretary to urge Dr. Fred Matiang’i to run for the president in the upcoming elections. George Magoha (Education), Joe Mucheru (ICT), Keriako Tobiko (Environment) and Eugene Wamalwa (Devolution) have all urged Mr. Matiang’i to be on the ballot for president in 2022.
Although the Minister of Interior himself has not said he will run for the presidency, calls for him to run has been on the rise lately. Perhaps precipitated by his stellar performance in both the Ministry of Internal Security as well as the Coordination of Government Projects. Mr. Matiang’i is widely seen as president Uhuru Kenyatta’s right hand man. The cabinet Secretary of interior is considered to be more useful to the head of state even than the deputy president himself.
Recently, Dr. Matiang’i disarmed all Nairobi MCAs following the assault of the Mlango Kubwa MCA MS Patricia Mutheu Musyimi. MS Musyimi was clobbered by at least four police officers during a skirmish involving a battle between Nairobi Governor Mbuvi Sonko supporters and Nairobi County Speaker Beatrice Elachi’s. The conflict was about a need to impeach Ms Elachi from his job due to poor performance. Regarding this case, Matiang’i swore to prosecute the rogue police officers and teamed with Nairobi Metropolitan Service Boss Mohammed Badi in calling for a construction of a police station at the city hall.
In today’s meeting in Kisii town, Dr. Matiang’i and CS Kagwe were impressed by the work of Kisii County governor James Ongwae. Some of the high profile politician in attendance at todays meeting includes Kisii Senator Prof. Sam Ongeri, MPs Richard Onyonka (Kitutu Chache South), James Angwenyi (Kitutu Chache North), Richard Tong’i (Nyaribari Chache) and Women Representative Janet Ongera. It is worth to note that all these politicians heaped their encouragement for CS Matiang’i to seriously consider running for president.
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Mr. Matiangi encouraged the public to follow the Ministry of Health guidelines on how to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus infection. He warned owners of bars and restaurants flouting the president’s ban on the sale of alcohol to stop immediately failure of which will lead to their prompt arrest and prosecution in the court of the the law.
The Ministry of Health CS updated the public about the current Covid-19 in the country which at the moment stands at 25,138. Of which 727 of the new cases was reported within the last 24 hours from a sample of 6,814 tests.
Globally, coronavirus has infected nearly 20 million people with more than 700,000 of the covid-19 succumbing to the deadly virus. The United States (5 million cases) still leads in both the number of cases as well as deaths (164,000) due to the coronavirus pandemic. Following closely behind is Brazil (2.9 million cases), India (2 million) and Russia (877,000) respectively in that order.
In Africa, South Africa is the most affected country so far with more than half a million covid-19 infections with at least 9,000 deaths.
What is your take? Do you think Dr. Matiang’i should run for president in 2022? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments below.
