Kuria: Ex-altar boy who believes money makes the world go round
Gatundu South Mp Moses Kuria addresses TNA supporters at Gatundu market on August 1, 2014 during a campaign rally. PHOTO | RAPHAEL NJOROGE | NATION
Gatundu South’s new MP Moses Kuria is like a double edged sword. He cuts from both sides.
In both Jubilee and Cord coalitions, he evokes mixed emotions.
To Cord leader Raila Odinga’s loyalists, he is tribal chauvinist, a loose cannon and an irritant.
To President Kenyatta’s Jubilee sympathisers, he is a defender of the “tribe” and a retaliatory asset to whatever is hurled at Mr Kenyatta.
In decorum terms, he would pass as “below average’, if you ask decent, intellectual figures. In boardrooms, he likes meetings short.
If hitting out at something or someone, he goes directly for the jugular—no room for innuendos. In short, you get to know exactly what he is saying.
But is Mr Kuria, with all that streetwise and politically provocative character, a busybody?
“I am a professional banker with 12 years experience,” he says. In fact, Kuria holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Nairobi.
Fearing he could lose her son to the State if he joined the Law class as Kuria had wanted, his mother prevailed him to change his course. Law students then were considered anti-Moi radicals.
Although he had been an altar boy at Gatundu Catholic Church, his mother may have lost much faith in his discipline, after he did his examinations from home following his suspension from Ituru Secondary School.
NOT FAIR
Coincidentally, Ituru Polling station would be the theatre of his TNA nomination intrigues after it gave him what he calls the tyranny of numbers.
“My opponents claim the primaries were not fair. But they were campaigning in areas with few votes. They should have done some mathematics,” he blurts out.
“The polling station is in Ngenda ward whose voters are 40 per cent of Gatundu South. This is Mr Kenyatta’s home. The ward also contributed 39 per cent of the nomination votes. I grew up and went to school there, so I was the homeboy and got the most backing,” he explains before closing that chapter.
“IEBC merged about five or six polling stations to form Ituru. So that explains the huge number of voters.”
Considered impatient to those who work with him, Kuria’s professional life only hammers that point home.
After graduation in 1993, Kuria worked as an auditor at Githongo & Co before he moved to Total Kenya as an accountant a year later.
After a short stint, he sought a job at Family Finance and Building Society but would disagree with the owner, Mr Titus Muya, after only four days over money. “During the six-month probation, I was to be paid Sh8,000 and after confirmation, he would pay me Sh6,000. I did not see any sense,” says Kuria. That is how he landed at Standard Chartered Bank in 1995.
After seven years, his former boss at Standard Chartered, Mr Chris Wingfield, had moved to Al Rajhi, the largest Islamic bank in the world.
“I got a call from Mr Wingfield in 2002 and said he wanted me in Saudi Arabia. Apart from good perks, I also met my wife Joyce Njambi there,” he says.
KIBAKI ADMIRER
“My two children (aged 12 and 9) were born in Saudi Arabia and Dubai respectively,” he lets out about his family. A child of a Gatundu business couple, Kuria is the fifth born in a family of nine.
An admirer of former President Kibaki, Kuria would return to Kenya from Dubai in 2007 just to help “my good capitalist role model”.
“I liked Kibaki’s economic philosophy. In Dubai, I would read how besieged he was and I thought, even if he was to lose, he should never lose to a socialist,” he says and breaks into mirthless laughter.
He joined the Kibaki team through Mr Kenyatta’s Kanu party. For five years, Kuria and another team of backroom political wheeler dealers would plot Kibaki’s succession game plan with Mr Kenyatta in mind.
In fact, he was key in plotting for massive registration of voters in Mr Kenyatta’s strongholds knowing when the full list came out, it would be difficult for Mr Kenyatta to play second fiddle to anyone.
“Our foresight was that politicians would make noise and when voter registration was closed, they would realise they had no real numbers eligible to vote. That is how Jubilee’s ‘tyranny of numbers’ was born,” reveals Mr Kuria.
So, is he a tribalist? “Ha ha ha. To Cord, I can’t be anything else. I talk what they do not want to hear. It doesn’t bother me,” he says. He agrees that his statements have been taken offensively but puts a rider.
“What I say is the truth that many people talk in hushed tones. The only problem is that for me, I say it in broad daylight,” he defends himself.
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