Peter Kagwanja says he supported Odinga to save marriage to CS Monica Juma

Former government adviser, Professor Peter Kagwanja, has opened up on how he was able to prevent his family from breaking up by supporting the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Alliance.

Kagwanja, spoke during a political show aired on KTN, saying that due to his wife’s involvement in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Cabinet he found it difficult to publicly support William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza.

He affirmed Ruto’s claim that many members of the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Alliance had no option but to support the movement.

Professor Peter Kagwanja Pulse Live Kenya

“You should take this point by William Ruto that there were people in Azimio who were coerced, it is true. Some of us were in Azimio because we could not go to the opposition. I was with Muturi but my wife was in the Cabinet and I did not want to break my family because I’m in the opposition,” he said.

He then went on to criticise President Kenyatta’s administration, saying that if the current government continued Kenyans would have found themselves in predicaments similar to those that plagued the Moi era.

“I don’t think there was freedom of choice and I was beginning to say that at the end of the regime, had Jubilee gotten another five years in power, we would have gone to the Moi era cryptocracy," Prof Kagwanja.

A cryptocracy is a form of government where the real leaders are hidden, or merely unknown.

Outgoing Energy CS Monica Juma is married to Professor Peter Kagwanja who is known as an intellectual and expert on security and governance.

Kagwanja is the founding President and Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute (API) and was one of the founders of the University Academic Staff Union (UASU).

As Juma's career continued to shine under President Kenyatta, her husband also become an insider in the Jubilee circles as one of the public intellectuals defending the government policy.

He was an émigré in South Africa between 2003 and 2008 and was in the team of experts that led to the creation of the African Union (AU) and its peace and security architecture.

Kagwanja also worked as a research associate with the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), working under Dr Willy Mutunga from 1996 to 2002.