Mwai Kibaki: Allure of Uganda, making it to top 100 list, and defying Kanu

Kenya’s former President Mwai Kibaki. [File, Standard]

Unknown to many, before the political bug bit him in early 1960s, youthful Mwai Kibaki had made up his mind to live, marry and settle in Uganda, the country he had fallen in love with. His friend from boyhood days, one Muriuki Mugwandia, was to tell me years later.

They first met as school boys in Nyeri and together proceeded to Mang'u High. They briefly parted ways but would re-unite when Kibaki completed studies in London and sought a teaching job at his alma mater, Makerere University. By now Mugwandia had got employed  as a salesman by Shell Oil company and posted to Kampala. He was only too happy to welcome his friend in Uganda. Kibaki did not want to stay idle as he waited for the Makerere job to come through, and joined his friend for a temporary job with Shell. They shared a rented house in Kampala, and continued to live together even after Kibaki finally got the Makerere job.

James Ngugi, today novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o, briefly attended Kibaki's economics class at Makerere. Like other Kenyan students at the college, he greatly admired Kibaki and wanted to be an economist. But on his first day in class, Ngugi recalled, he looked at the complicated formulas the young lecturer was writing on the blackboard and decided he wasn’t cut out for figures and formulas but for letters. He fled Kibaki's class to study literature. No regrets though because that is where he belonged and made a big name.

It was while sharing a house in Kampala that Kibaki and his old friend Mugwandia toyed with the idea of marrying Ugandan girls and settling there instead of their mother country. But politics soon beckoned and Kibaki returned home, and was soon followed by his friend.

Kibaki had been contracted to write a manifesto for Uganda People's Congress, the party that would lead the country to independence. Kenya was also in its last steps to independence and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who was vice president of the newly formed Kanu party, travelled to Kampala to compare notes with Milton Obote who would be first prime minister and later Ugandan president. When shown the manifesto for Obote’s party, Jaramogi was so impressed that he asked to be introduced to the person who had written it. He was all the happier to hear it was a young lecturer from Kenya by the name Mwai Kibaki, who was immediately brought to him. Jaramogi there and then offered Kibaki the job of first Kanu executive officer with the first assignment being to write the party a manifesto similar to the one he had written for Ugandans.

Back home, Kanu purchased for the young man his first car, a Volkswagen Beetle. He would work well with another youthful man by the name John Keen, who was the party’s first organising secretary. Years later, Keen would tell me about a night they nearly perished driving Kibaki’s VW and almost crashed into a lone elephant that suddenly crossed their way. “We were so shocked that, adventurous as we were those days, we decided not to drive further in the night but sleep in Voi town,” Keen said.

At the Kanu headquarters they had no regular salary but Mzee Kenyatta and Jaramogi ensured the two young men did not go hungry or not have money to fuel the Volkswagen. On their weekends off, the two young men would drive to Kambui Teachers College in Kiambu where Kibaki was dating a beautiful young woman, who was a lecturer at the college. Her name was Lucy Muthoni Kagai, later Mama Lucy Kibaki. Keen, who was already married, told me Kibaki was a shy man who couldn’t propose to Lucy fast enough until Keen told him to stop going to see her if he wasn’t sure what he wanted with her. 

At independence Kibaki was appointed assistant minister for Economic Planning under Tom Mboya. They worked so well and fully complemented each other. While Kibaki was the trained economist and ably briefed his boss on technical aspects of policy, Mboya was genius at articulating, even bulldozing implementation.

Most promising

Soon after, Kibaki was appointed full minister in the Commerce docket, where he presided over massive Africanisation of the sector. He was instrumental in establishment of corporate infrastructure that enabled Africans venture into commercial farming, trade and industry. Institutions formed under his watch included Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC), Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC), Kenya Industrial Estates (KIE), and Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (ICDC).

But it is as minister for Finance and Economic Planning that Kibaki shone best to a point in December 1974 Time magazine had him on the list of 100 most promising world leaders.

At home Mzee Jomo Kenyatta liked him as he was the only one who explained complicated economic matters in a practical way the president could understand. A former Treasury PS, Charles Mbindyo, told me how Kibaki once convinced Mzee Kenyatta to agree to devaluation of the Kenyan shilling by giving an example of the holes in the belt to explain elasticity of money. Outside the country, Kibaki performed as brilliant and regional delegations would unanimously pick him to speak on their behalf at international forums. Mbindyo recalled one such meeting of the ACP/EU in Barbados where Kibaki arrived late but ACP delegates still shouted: “Mwai Kibaki of Kenya”, when asked who was to speak on their behalf.

No to Kanu badge

In politics, much as President Daniel arap Moi did not trust him and eventually dropped him as vice president, those who knew Kibaki well say he was never subversive, but only principled. For instance, at the height of Kanu's high-handed tactics, he is the only politician who adamantly declined to wear a Kanu badge on his coat lapel, insisting that it was demeaning to have a grown man wear a badge with the head of another man on his chest. Sycophants capitalised on that to convince President Moi that Kibaki was not loyal to him.

Another excuse for doubting Kibaki was because in the single-party era, he argued that Kanu should be big enough to tolerate all shades of opinion since Kenyans had no alternative channel to air their views. Hardliners in Kanu were not happy, especially when he insisted that Jaramogi and several others who had been expelled from Kanu be allowed back as such was best way to stop them from digging further in their radicalism. In August 1986 when he was vice president, Kibaki got so much flak when he told a gathering of church leaders the State should allow positive criticism from the clergy since they too had a big constituency to speak for.

Kibaki was also the only Cabinet minister to attend and speak at the burial of slain vocal MP JM Kariuki, when fellow ministers were so scared to even fly the national flag on their cars, fearing reprisal from angered public who saw government hand in the MP's murder. Kibaki also had the courage to preside over the launch of Ngugi wa Thiong’o's radical book, Petals of Blood.

But with the powers-that-be suspicious of his motives, the National Security Intelligence Service was under instructions to keep an eye on him, says former deputy director of intelligence, Jospeh Kibati in his book, The Spy-master. But they never found anything suspect in Kibaki's conduct. He was a patriot who meant well. May God rest his soul in eternal peace.