Matere Keriri: Falling out with Lucy Kibaki

By Machua Koinange

Former Comptroller of State House Matere Keriri has opened up on the years he was former President Kibaki’s confidant and diary keeper and his fallout with then First Lady Lucy Kibaki.

Keriri’s friendship with Kibaki goes back half a century from the days he was a student at Makerere. “I have known Kibaki since 1959 when I was a student. Kibaki had just returned from the London School of Economics to take the position of junior lecturer. He taught me economics,” says Keriri.

Their paths criss-crossed at various intervals in their political careers. Kibaki left Makerere to become Kanu’s first Executive Officer in 1960 and later served in the new Jomo Kenyatta-led administration in 1963.

After the 1969 elections, Kibaki returned as Minister for Finance while Keriri was the finance secretary at The Treasury. In 1972, Keriri was appointed CEO of Development Finance Company of Kenya (DFCK) and their lives took different paths.

Parliamentary debut

In 1983, he threw himself into politics and ran for the Kerugoya West seat. He won and served and was appointed an Assistant Minister.

They reconnected with Kibaki again in 1992 after the former VP had set up the Democratic Party.

“But I was disappointed with both Kibaki and Kenneth Matiba, the fact that they did not unite to field one candidate,” he says.

Keriri jumped on board with Kibaki in 1997 when he contested and won the Kirinyaga-Kutus parliamentary seat on a DP ticket. “I was Kibaki’s Shadow Minister for Economic Planning and National Development,” he says.

In 2002, Keriri joined Kibaki’s campaign team as its chairman.

Keriri reveals that after the swearing in ceremony, retired President Moi left Uhuru Park first and was driven straight to State House.

State House stint

Says he: “Moi did not enter the building, but got into a helicopter and flew out. It was not necessary for him to be present. He had his officers to hand over to us.”

Keriri and former Finance Minister David Mwiraria were among the first to arrive for the handing over at State House, barely minutes after Kibaki had been sworn in that sunny afternoon at exactly 2:07pm on December 30.

Keriri remembers seeing Moi’s helicopter lift off from the State House lawn. He recalls Dr Sally Kosgei weeping on the lawn but says Kibaki kept her on to help with the transition.

“She was very helpful for those three months.”

He says Kibaki prepared his list of appointment for ministers by scribbling the names with a pen and paper. “He told me as he worked on the list, put your name there as my Private Secretary. What else do you say to that?”

And with that, Keriri began his tumultuous role as the president’s private secretary. He quickly learnt that being comptroller was not duck soup and there was no training manual.

Their journey to State House had not been easy.

On December 3, 2002 Keriri remembers waiting in Nairobi for Kibaki to return from a campaign trip in Machakos when his phone rang.

He was stunned to learn that Kibaki had just been involved in an accident. He went to wait for Kibaki at Nairobi Hospital. “I was scared. This was Kibaki the candidate, who by all indications was going to win. Now he was in an accident,” he says.

Raila confrontation

Kibaki was flown to London for specialised treatment and returned just in time for the polls.

The first days of the presidency presented enormous challenges for a new but bed-ridden Head of State who, at the advice of his doctor, had to set up shop inside State House. Keriri made all the initial arrangements for a bed to be brought into State House and a full medical staff to be on standby.

His greatest challenge in those initial days was to ensure that Kibaki was visible to the public despite his worrying health condition. “I would organise trips for him to tour the country so that wananchi could see the president was there.”

But nothing prepared Keriri for the day Kibaki had to be admitted back to Nairobi Hospital just weeks after he had been sworn in.

“How do you explain to a nation that the president is not well?” he wonders, looking back.

Kibaki’s initial health issues had been shrouded in secrecy. Part of the hospital’s private wing was secured for the president to use.

Keriri was in State House when a security detail at Nairobi Hospital told him that then Roads Minister Raila Odinga was on his way to Kibaki’s hospital room with a doctor in tow.

Frantic and in panic, Keriri got into his car and sped off towards Nairobi hospital in a fit. He burst through the door moments after Raila and the doctor had entered the room.

What followed then was a tense confrontation. He ordered Raila and the doctor to leave the room. “ I told Raila, ‘Mr Minister, just leave. Just leave’. I ordered them out and instructed the security detail not to allow anybody outside the family into the room without my permission.”

Looking back, Keriri says the problem was that the doctor accompanying Raila had no security clearance. Kibaki already had his own doctor (Dr Gikonyo) and he read mischief into the incident.

(We contacted Raila’s former chief campaign manager Eliud Owallo who advised us that the retired Prime Minister’s personal assistant Dennis Onyango would contact us. Efforts to reach him proved fruitless).

Keriri’s second challenge on the job was his relationship with First Lady Lucy Kibaki.

He says: “The First Lady and I had been very good friends. I knew her before she was married to Kibaki when she was a teacher. I was very close to the family”.

Falling out with Lucy

Their initially cordial relationship soon spiraled into acrimony. Keriri says they disagreed on how to run the president’s diary. Insiders say the disagreement spilled out in the open when the first family was vacationing in Mombasa when Keriri and Lucy openly disagreed.

He says: “This was the first time I had a disagreement with her in State House.” So what led to the abrupt falling out? Keriri says it was the culmination of many things.

“I am reluctant to talk about it out of respect for the First Lady.  This may not be the time, but we disagreed on how to run the presidency.”

But the incident that caught the public eye about the continued rumors about their sore relationship was captured on camera.

Kibaki and his family landed at the airport on January 5, 2004 after the Mombasa trip and the media reported that the First Lady had snubbed Keriri’s outstretched hand.

Keriri has a different take: “The media widely reported that I had been snubbed. Relations between me and the First Lady had deteriorated. So when she got closer to where I was standing on the line, I merely stepped back to avoid an encounter with her. She walked past and we never chatted.”

That led him to decide to leave his job. He had a conversation with Kibaki about his decision. “I told him it was not tenable for me to remain here, I think I should go.”

Kibaki gave Keriri two weeks off to think. “I went away to London. But I knew I was not going to go back. I knew it was not going to be fair on him. Not me, but him.”

A few days later, a statement issued from State House indicated Keriri had been sent on leave and later re-deployed to the Office of the President. Keriri left to work in the energy sector, specifically the Energy Regulatory Board.

Looking back, he says the one thing that worked for Kibaki during his tenure was that “Kibaki never had a ‘kitchen cabinet’, he always wanted everyone working together.”

He credits the former president for working hard to put the economy on track. “Kibaki rarely gets the credit he deserves. For all the trouble he received from opposition groups throughout his presidency, he managed to steer the economy to seven per cent economic growth in less than 10 years.”

What does Kibaki dislike most? Says Keriri:” Don’t go to Kibaki and tell him there is a problem and you don’t have a solution.”

Mkoinange@standardmedia.co.ke