Nancy Gitau, a senior aide of President Uhuru Kenyatta has quit, exposing the icy relations within the Jubilee government. Mrs Gitau, the head of President Kenyatta’s political advisory unit and a key adviser on governance, tendered her resignation to the Head of State on Monday.
The Standard reports that that in her resignation letter delivered to the President’s desk last Monday, she will leave next month. “I will quit the Government beginning August this year,” Mrs Gitau told Standard. “I wrote to his Excellency the President earlier in the week about this matter. I am leaving the Government a happy woman. I have accomplished a lot since February 2007.”
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Mrs Gitau is among a team of eight listed in the Presidency’s website as members of the Executive Office of the Presidency. She is named as Senior Political Adviser to the President. Others in the team are Joseph Kinyua, the President’s Chief of Staff, Jomo Gecaga (President’s Private Secretary), Lawrence Lenayapa (State House Comptroller), George Kariuki (Deputy State House Comptroller), Manoah Esipisu (State House Spokesman), Abdikadir Mohamed (Senior Adviser, Constitutional and Legal Affairs) and Nzioka Waita, Secretary of Delivery, the Presidential Delivery Unit.
The resignation is a culmination of a sustained tug-of-war within the Jubilee administration and could be the beginning of an episode that could give the public a rare peek into the behind-the-scenes power struggle.
Mrs Gitau has been at the centre of vicious infighting pitting camps allied to the President’s The National Alliance (TNA) party against the United Republican Party (URP) of his deputy William Ruto. Because of her power and influence, Mrs Gitau has also earned enemies within TNA, leaving her exposed. There are incidents where even senior officers at State House tried to block her from accessing the President at his State House office.
Similarly, the relations between her and forces around the DP had at one point deteriorated to the extent that some key players within Government felt the stability of the coalition was under threat.
As a result of the rising tensions, Gitau was moved from State House to Harambee House in the City Centre. She soon thereafter resorted to working from her private office as it increasingly became clear she was unwanted and even some of her close allies dumped her.
