Samson Cherargei: The man at the heart of 2025 Senate ‘chaos’
By Luke Oluoch, January 5, 2026As the chamber for legislation and political discussion, the floor of the Kenyan Senate lived up to its billing as the central stage for political duels in 2025.
For Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei, however, the events of the chamber felt like his personal stage, with him dominating major discussions and fights in the chamber that has never been short of drama.
The alumnus of the prestigious Kapsabet Boys High School and Moi University first burst onto the national scene in 2017 as one of the youngest senators ever elected.
A die-hard William Ruto loyalist and UDA firebrand, Cherargei spent the year cementing his reputation as perhaps the chamber’s most controversial figure.
From the controversial legislation seeking to extend the president’s term limit to his differences with CSs like Kipchumba Murkomen and the “finya hao bila huruma” on Kenyan activism action in East Africa, the senator had a whirlwind year both on the floor of the senate and in his dealings as a public figure.
The feud with Murkomen
Cherargei has been a constant critic of Murkomen for years — first over the status of roads when Murkomen was Transport CS, then over insecurity after he moved to the Interior docket.
The senator repeatedly accused him of incompetence and corruption, especially over banditry in the troubled North Rift.
In one explosive Senate session, a furious Murkomen snapped back, questioning Cherargei’s education and lamenting that the senator “follows me from ministry to ministry like a personal tormentor.
The beef later escalated online as Cherargei sustained the fight against the CS.
‘Finya hao bila huruma’ moment
November 2025 delivered Cherargei’s most explosive controversy yet.
Speaking in Kapsabet, he urged Presidents Samia Suluhu and Yoweri Museveni to “finya hao bila huruma” (crush them mercilessly), referring to Kenyan activists allegedly meddling in Uganda and Tanzania.
Many had it as a veiled endorsement of the wave of abductions sweeping East Africa. Outrage was instant. Churches, rights groups, and opposition leaders demanded his censure.
Cherargei issued a half-hearted clarification, insisting he only meant diplomatic action.
Senate’s resident troll
Inside the chamber, Cherargei was the man colleagues love to hate. Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna once jibed that he wished he spoke Nandi so he could translate standing orders for Cherargei “in a language he understands.”
The senator’s remarks stemmed from being irked by Cherargei’s constant points of order, which he claimed were disrupting the flow of meaningful discussion.
Former LSK president Nelson Havi was harsher, branding him “Omunyambi” — the president’s exhaust pipe—“who went through school but never let school go through him.”
Blessed (or cursed) with an inability to back down, Cherargei thrived on confrontation. Whether picking fights, picking a side in them, or turning serious debates into jest or sideshows, the Senate’s beating heart of controversy had them in plenty in 2025.