Mwai Kibaki: The young brother who rose to top seat and became pillar

When Mwai Kibaki was elected president in 2002, his brothers and sister were just humble rural folks whose lifestyles never change much despite their sibling's ascendance to the top office in the land.

At the time he ascended to the presidency, his two other brothers and two sisters were dead, and so was his father, mother and step-mother. The closest surviving relatives were his elder brother Bernard Nderitu, 75, his elder sister, Esther Waitherero, 82, and stepbrother Samuel Githinji, 60.

Nderitu, who was four years older than the President, was a rural tea farmer at Gatuyaini village, where Kibaki was born. Although Kibaki was the last born, he was regarded as the pillar of the family.

Nderitu and other relatives attended the swearing-in ceremony at Uhuru Park and stood with the crowd. After that, they went to the President's Muthaiga home for celebrations, and then returned to Othaya.

Waitherero's life rotated around her large tea farm. Her husband had died before Independence, leaving her with several children whose number she refused to disclose because "it's against tradition".

She melted into mirth of laughter when the subject of Kibaki is brought up: "Githua giki ngakionari! (When will I see this limping man?)," she says fondly and then asks when the cast on his leg will be removed.

She did not travel to Nairobi for the swearing-in ceremony, she says. The last time she saw Kibaki was during the campaigns when he visited the family. With obvious pride written all over her face, she told of how she brought up Kibaki and Nderitu.

Step-brother Githinji, a shopkeeper at Gatuyaini shops, had fond memories of their childhood. Because he was 10 years younger than Kibaki, Githinji recalls how he would always be given all the school shorts and shirts that the elder brother outgrew.

Kibaki's first cousin, Michael Kibaki, had built his home at exactly the same spot where the house of Mzee Kibaki Githinji used to be. On the gate to his homestead stands a mugumo tree which was once the mark to the entrance into Mwai Kibaki's father's homestead. The strong, massive tree must have made an impression on young Kibaki's mind as he would many years later refer to the impossibility of cutting it down with a razor blade.

The cousin said that many times, Kibaki would take a book and read it for hours seated under the drooping branches of the mugumo tree.

[First published on January 19, 2003]