Jubilee Party’s pick for the 2027 presidential election Fred Okengo Matiang’i faces a rough road in his intention after it emerged that a myriad of political anthills are being placed in his path by influential forces within the establishment even before he formally announces the bid.

Convinced that Matiang;i “is a coward who cannot stand the weight of State machinery,” his detractors within the ruling Kenya Kwanza Alliance are reportedly schemers against his intended move.

The ruling ensemble’s plotters are reportedly “salivating insatiably” at Matiangi’s impending official declaration of his candidature which they plan to greet with a considerable muscle of vengeance for his acts of omission and commission while he held mammoth influence in the previous Government of retired President Uhuru Kenyatta and the current President William Ruto as the former’s Principal Assistant.

There is no love lost between the former powerful Cabinet Secretary for Interior and top-notch functionaries in the incumbent Kenya Kwanza regime who feel he misused his mandate and mistreated them when he held the coveted position.

Impeccable sources told the People Daily that Matiang’i is likely to face 14 criminal and misdemeanour charges once he formally declares his bid to run for Presidency.

Since the ascendancy of President Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza Alliance to power after the August 2022 polls, Matiangi’s has not openly come out to give his position on the next election.

However, the possibility of his candidacy was first floated by the Jubilee Party secretary-general Jeremiah Kioni towards the end of last year and has remained consistent on the matter to date.

Kitutu Chache MP Richard Momoima Onyonka has since emerged as Matiang’i  political emissary on the local scene, with the vocal fourth-term MP taking advantage of every available opportunity within Opposition circles to state that he is a representative of the former University of Nairobi Literature lecturer.

The move by the Jubilee Party to float him as its presidential candidate has rubbed some Kenya Kwanza elites the wrong way.

The unamused key State luminaries, People Daily has learnt, have for the past two years been juggling with possible criminal charges to be preferred against the former Minister.

Initially, the authoritative sources disclosed, Matiang’i was to have faced only five criminal charges in the first half of 2023 but the move was put on hold after intervention by senior politicians from his Kisii backyard led by immediate former Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu..

However, the sources revealed, a decision by the former ruling party headed to present Matiang’i as its presidential candidate has incensed a considerable number of luminaries within the administration who have since revisited the abandoned proposed charge sheet and resolved to “show him a lesson” with 14 criminal and misdemeanour charges having already been drafted as of the end of last month.

People Daily established that relevant Kenya Kwanza political actors have lately been weaving what they consider to be water-tight embarrassing offences against the former Minister relating to the multi-million Ruaraka land fraud case in which his name has repeatedly been mentioned adversely, abuse of office, stealing by agent, disobeying court orders, especially at the Immigration Department on matters relating to litigation by self-exiled outspoken lawyer Joshua Miguna Miguna whose passport the State had revoked during Matiang’i’s tenure in office, an assault and molestation complaint by a young faithful of the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Nairobi Central church, alleged money laundering, alleged swindling of Shs 10 billion meant for the implementation of the stalled Huduma Number programme, shootings of civilians during the Covid-19 enforcement exercise, extra-judicial killings and dumping of the victims’ bodies in River Yala, Tana River and Isiolo and other places in Kenya. The cases against Matiang’i are to be filed in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kisii and Mombasa courts.

During Uhuru’s second term in office, the retired President issued an Executive Order in which he handed his Interior Cabinet Secretary massive powers, some of which were plucked from then Deputy President William Ruto.

Bad blood was soon to develop between the then Deputy President and Matiang’i and ran up to the time of the last General-Election in which the Azimio side that the minister wholeheartedly supported narrowly lost.

On two occasions soon after the Kenya Kwanza administration was sworn into office, Matiang’i’s house in Karen was reportedly visited by security agents with the intent of searching it for suspected laundered money and weapons.

On both times, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga who was the Azimio La Umoja presidential vindicate in the 2022 polls and who also lives in the leafy Karen suburb as Matiang;i – visited the former CS’s home to show solidarity with him. The reports were, however, dismissed by the National Police Service which said no one within its ranks was looking for the former CS.

Around that time, Machogu publicly stated firing a presidential tour of Kisii County that Matiang’i had reached out to him asking for his intervention so that he would not be persecuted by the Kenya Kwanza regime.

Machogu said that he had in turn approached then DP Rigathi Gachagua, a former colleague of his in the Provincial Administration to plead his case, to which the one-time Mathira MP assured him that all would be well and nothing untoward could ever happen to Matiang’i.

Soon, after the incident Matiamg’i reportedly left the country and has been living abroad since then, only coming into Kenya quietly once in a while.

Ahead of the 2033 election, persons close to Matiangi registered a political party by the name UPA, which was part of the Azimio coalition in 2022.