Matiang'i Alleges What Uhuru Told Him When He Was About To Retire

Former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i has lifted the curtain on a moment from Kenya's 2022 transition period that speaks volumes about the character of former President Uhuru Kenyatta, revealing a declaration Uhuru made to the National Security Council that has now taken on fresh significance given the country's current political climate.

Matiang'i disclosed that while serving as Interior CS, Uhuru addressed the National Security Council and made his position on the transition of power crystal clear.

Regardless of who was declared the winner of the presidential election, Uhuru told the council that he would hand over the country peacefully. He was not prepared to shed blood to influence or contest the outcome.

The statement, delivered to the country's most senior security officials, was not made for public consumption at the time. 

It was a private declaration of principle from a sitting president to the people responsible for the country's security architecture, and it set the tone for how the entire transition would be managed.

Coming from Matiang'i, who was in that room and heard those words directly, the account carries the weight of a firsthand witness. He was not relaying a rumour or a secondhand account. He was there.

The revelation lands at a charged moment in Kenya's political conversation, as Uhuru himself has just broken his silence to warn about the dangers of ethnic incitement and the echoes of 2007 he hears in the country's current climate.

Together, the two moments paint a picture of a former president whose defining instinct, whatever his other failings may have been, was to put the country above personal or political survival.

In a landscape currently defined by self-interest at every turn, that instinct stands out sharply.