“I’m a son of a pastor, we were taught to be truthful, we were told to apologize when we made mistakes, we were told to repent when we sin but in politics there is no repentance, apology, forgiveness and wrongdoing; everything you do is justified and you take things the way you see them”-Cyrus Jirongo (29/10/2021).
Former Lugari Member of Parliament (MP) Cyrus Jirongo is a politician whose rise in politics is attributed to the infamous YK 92 that prolonged KANU’s tight grip to power just after the introduction of multi-party democracy in Kenya.
However, Jirongo has been described as a man with a loose, loud mouth and as such struggled to pick his feet after curtains closed on KANU’s reign in 2002. Worse still, Jirongo has been in and out of court for failure to pay multi-million debts something that saw him locked up in police cells in September, 2018.
Age
He was born in 1961. (60 years old).
Education
Jirongo studied at Mang’u High School between 1978 and 1981.
Family
Jirongo recently revealed that he was brought up by his mother who was a pastor. The mother passed away in 2014.
The former presidential hopeful is a proud polygamous man married to 4 wives from Kalenjin, Kamba, Agikuyu and Maasai tribes. According to Jirongo, he has several children but declined to give the exact number.
In a bid to knit the family’s cohesion, all the children were brought up in one home, and at one point he purchased a minibus to take them to school. Jirongo does not keep a will on account that the children have maintained good relationship among themselves.
Political Career
Jirongo was propelled to the public eye by the then Youth for KANU (YK92), a controversial pact that was allegedly used to siphon public funds and maintain KANU’s leadership.
In 1997, Jirongo contested and won the Lugari parliament seat and was appointed as a minister for Rural Development. However, Jirongo was among the KANU bigwigs that were beaten hands down in 2002 after he lost to NARC’s Dr. Enoch Kibunguchy in Lugari constituency.
In 2007, Jirongo made a comeback into bunge through a little known party, the Kenya African Democratic Development Union (KADDU). He had only campaigned for a short period.
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After promulgation of the new constitution, Jirongo unsuccessfully vied for the Kakamega senatorial seat and lost to Dr. Boni Khalwale in 2013.
In the last general elections, Jirongo unsuccessfully vied for the country’s top seat.
Why Jirongo ‘Loves To Hate’ DP William Ruto
Jirongo has on numerous occasions made harrowing remarks on Deputy President William Ruto. In a 2020 interview with KTN, Jirongo revealed that he first met Ruto in 1992. They then became business partners and Jirongo allegedly tasked Ruto with managing his tour company named Venture Africa.
However, Jirongo claims that after one year, his company which had procured 12 vehicles only managed to make ksh 1 million. He accused Ruto of registering a company through which he diverted money from Venture Africa.
Jirongo’s frosty relationship with Ruto appeared to further thicken in 2016 when he appeared to link Ruto with the death of businessman Jacob Juma.
While making his remarks at All Saint’s Cathedral during a requiem mass, Jirongo alleged that the late had previously slapped Ruto urging investigative agencies to begin their inquest using this clue.
“Jacob Juma slapped the Deputy President sometimes back, that is where the investigations should start,” said Jirongo.
However, Ruto alleged that the former Lugari MP was only bitter that he had outshone him politically despite being his spanner boy for 7 years.
“My brother Jirongo is sometimes bitter with me because I was once his henchman. But now (laughs)..he wonders how I made it, my friend, ni kujipanga. I don’t refuse you were my boss. It is God’s work,” Ruto hit back.
And as the country enters into the 2022 electioneering period, Jirongo has claimed that it will be a ‘political accident’ should Ruto win in 2022.
He has accused the country’s second in command as being a ‘materialistic’ individual alleging that ‘there are things he can’t say’.
“There is something that I have never understood about him. He has insatiable appetite for material things. You know accumulation of wealth if you have worked for it is not bad but his character has pronounced itself more and more as he grows up,” Jirongo told Nation in a recent interview.
He added that Ruto has many political foes who find it hard to work with him and that the late President Daniel Moi too had a punctured relationship with Ruto.
“In Kalenjin tradition, when something goes wrong, you send the elders to go and apologize for you and then you get an opportunity to go and repent. Ruto tried sending elders to Moi and the former president refused. What did he do that Moi defied Kalenjin elders?” Jirongo posed.
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