Former President Mwai Kibaki’s choice of town life over serene Mweiga baffles friends

Former President Mwai Kibaki

Nyeri, Kenya: Former President Mwai Kibaki’s rare visits to his former rural constituency of Othaya and Nyeri County at large has continued to confound residents of the area.

Since his retirement, the last public visit Kibaki made to Nyeri was in 2013 when he testified in a case in which directors of a real estate company were accused of defrauding him, his older brothers and others of their shareholding in the firm. 

Since then, the 83-year-old is not known to have visited the constituency he represented from 1973 to 2013 — at least not for a public engagement — nor his taxpayer-funded retirement home at Mweiga in Kieni constituency.

Most of his key allies in the constituency say they have accepted his absence because, as Ndegwa Wanyaga, a former Chinga Tea Factory director claims, he had long declared that his Nairobi residence would be his home for the rest of his life.

“I recall him speaking about the need to make such personal decisions early in life during the saga that was the SM Otieno burial in the mid 1980s,” said Wanyaga, referring to a landmark case in which the widow of a renowned Nairobi lawyer differed with his clan over where to bury her husband.

“That he is missing here is no surprise because it is even possible that the former President never once slept at Othaya since he became President in 2003,” hazarded Wanyaga.

Mr Peter Kanyago, a key ally of the former President, said Kibaki’s close friends had easier access to him before he became president as he was a regular figure at the Muthaiga Golf Club, especially when he served as the patron of the Kenya Golf Union.

Long time friends

But former presidential security adviser Essau Kioni said Kibaki was a private man who seldom contacted his long time close friends. 

“As for the ordinary mwananchi in Othaya, it will be wrong to say he is missed because Kibaki never had little social dealings with them,” said Kioni.

He believes Kibaki’s absence from Othaya could be because he left the village when he was too young to embark on a sterling academic odyssey that would take him to Karima Mission School, Nyeri High School, Mangu High School, Makerere University and the London School of Economics in the UK. He then worked briefly at Makerere before moving to Nairobi where he took up a job in Kanu before he embarked on a life in elective politics.

Kioni is not the only one hazarding a guess why Kibaki has kept away from Othaya. Nyeri District Co-operative Union (NDCU) chairman Newton Nderitu is convinced that Kibaki’s absence could be because his choice of successor as area MP was rejected by the people. “He would not like to be seen as interfering or casting a shadow over the area MP,” offers  Nderitu, who also served as the chair of the Othaya Coffee Society.

Former Nyeri County Council Chairman Wachira Keen Maina offers a word of caution though. He says because the former President is a very private person, it should not be assumed that he has not visited Nyeri. Keen says Kibaki may have visited his homes in Othaya and Mweiga without the public’s knowledge.

The public would obviously like to see him visit says Keen, who is Kibaki’s neighbour at Mweiga.

The village would be delighted to have the former President retire in the area and join parishioners for Sunday mass in the nearby Njengu Catholic Church.

“We don’t know his plans, but Nyeri is one of Kenya’s most ideal retirement areas due to its agreeable weather,” said Keen.

We couldn’t get the former president to personally speak about this issue and a response from his office came from the head of his Communications Directorate, Ngari Gituku, who admitted that the former Head of State was quite busy in retirement and had not had much time to meet his former associates. “He is a busy man and they are also busy so I would say they don’t roast maize in the evening as often as they would,” said Gituku.

Gituku said the former President spends a lot of time tending to his personal business and on the Millennium Water Alliance Trust-Kenya, where he is the patron.

As patron of Kenya Golf Union (KGU) and frequents golf courses mostly as a spectator, his golfing having been cut short by a stroke he suffered while in office. He is also a regular at Muthaiga Golf Club and Muthaiga County Club. In last week’s Kenya Open, he presented the trophy to the winner Haydn Porteous of South Africa.  

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Mwai Kibaki Othaya