Ndindi Nyoro: Firebrand MP bears brunt of handshake

Since he burst into the political scene largely on the back of belittling opposition leader Raila Odinga on social media platforms and Kikuyu TV stations, 33-year-old Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro has rarely been out of the headlines.

And the past few weeks have been no exception. ODM leader Raila Odinga referred to the youthful legislator as a mad man after he tabled a bill that many opined would strip the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and Directorate of Public Prosecutions of the power to do their work.

His initial proposals in the Anti-corruption and Economics Crime Amendment Bill 2019 also included execution of those found guilty.

Last month, President Uhuru Kenyatta, presumably out of disdain for the MP, walked out of a function as Nyoro approached the podium to give his condolences during a burial ceremony.

UHURU DISPLEASED

The President returned immediately after his remarks and when he rose to speak, he slammed the Kiharu MP for loitering around the country engaging in endless meetings.

Before that, Mr Kenyatta also walked out as Mr Nyoro was addressing mourners at the burial of veteran politician Kenneth Matiba.

Mr Nyoro does not just make the President jittery. His strong words against Mr Odinga have made him an unpopular politician among the ODM leader’s supporters.

Last week, during a Gor Mahia match at Kasarani Stadium, he had to quickly dash out of the stadium before the match ended as the football fans bayed for his blood, accusing him of abusing Baba — Mr Odinga.

Whereas both Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga rebuke the young legislator, Deputy President William Ruto regards Mr Nyoro as a key cog in the 2022 campaigns, and by extension the future of the country.

“I have travelled to every part of this country and I can without any doubt say that your MP (Nyoro) is among the most progressive and development-oriented legislators,” Mr Ruto said in February during the burial of the mother of Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata.

HATE SPEECH

Before the fallout, Mr Nyoro was as much a sycophantic defender of Mr Kenyatta as of the Mr Ruto today.

Before the 2017 polls, National Cohesion and Integrated Commission (NCIC) profiled him among social media users who were spreading hate speech after he said that he “would do anything for Uhuru”, and used unprintable words against Mr Odinga and a certain community.

His loyalty, or sycophancy, to Mr Kenyatta, extended to the point that Mr Nyoro threatened to resign from his parliamentary seat if the President lost the October 2017 repeat presidential poll.

His most strident critics see the MP, who is an Economics graduate from Kenyatta University (KU), as a dangerous rabble-rouser.

2022 POLITICS

His fellow student leader at KU, Apopo Lentana, refers to him as an unrefined politician but Mr Nyoro is unfazed.

“I hear that a lot. But I don’t care as long as I stand for the truth and as long as I have a conscience,” he defends himself.

Mr Nyoro, who has a black belt in taekwondo and regularly travels in the same car as Mr Ruto, has emerged as Mr Ruto’s pointman in central Kenya, a move that has put him at loggerheads with Mr Kenyatta.

“Mt Kenya is sealed for the DP. Our people will not betray Ruto in 2022,” he said as we sat for an interview.

“Like Mr Ruto, my father was a nobody. He was a poor carpenter who only left us with a hammer, a handsaw and nails as inheritance,” he says.

STUDENT LEADER

Being raised in abject poverty forced him to start earning a living while young.

While studying at Kiambugi Secondary School, he repaired shoes for his schoolmates, cleaned their clothes and sold basic items to raise his school fees.

In his second year of study, he sold a hotel he started and used the proceeds to campaign for the position of Academic Affairs Secretary, Kenyatta University Students Association.

As a student leader, he was among the group of Kenyatta University students who travelled about 20km to the neighbouring Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and engineered a strike asking students to protest against an increase in the price of chapati from Sh4 to Sh10 at the institution’s mess.

While in university, he wrote a high school motivation book and started ICT and stockbrokerage companies through which he became a millionaire before he was 25 years old.

MARRIAGE

When not worrying about politics, the Kiharu legislator is facing growing concern from his constituency about his marital status, an issue in local politics where the institution of marriage is a campaign factor.

During the campaigns, locals told the Sunday Nation, that he suddenly appeared with a lady whom he introduced as his wife.

But she was not seen again after the campaigns.

When you search his name in Google, one of the main questions that emerges is, “Is Ndindi Nyoro married?”