Sagana: The place it occupies in Kenya’s history

President Uhuru Kenyatta at State Lodge in Sagana, Nyeri County, February 23, 2022. [Mose Sammy, Standard]

In 2016 when President Uhuru Kenyatta was hosting governors at the Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri, one of the county chiefs who arrived late blamed it on confusion on location.

He said he had to stop at the Sagana Town on the Nairobi – Nyeri Highway to ask for directions.

He, like many Kenyans, assumed the State lodge was at the town.

It was not until Uhuru took over in 2013 that the lodge, located on the banks of Sagana River, that it became a favoured venue for presidential functions.

Yet Sagana is not as obscure a State lodge.

It was at Sagana in 2008 during the peace and reconciliation efforts in the aftermath of the 2007/2008 post-election violence that former President Mwai Kibaki and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga crafted their coalition Cabinet.

A few years earlier, President Kibaki’s government had spent extravagantly trying to modernise the colonial era lodge.

The Narc government upgraded it at a cost of more than Sh300 million.

This “$5,600 hunting lodge in the darkest Africa” was constructed and gifted to Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth, on November 20, 1947 upon her marriage to Phillip Mountbatten.

Tucked at the edge of a forest, it was returned to the then prime minister Jomo Kenyatta in 1963 by the queen.

But while no hunting goes on, there are still political predators lurking and prey to be stalked.

From Sagana, Uhuru, who has been facing rebellion from the elected leaders in his Mt Kenya stronghold, has been pushing back and asserting himself.

It was here that the Building Bridges Initiative gained the backing of the region’s county assemblies, who overwhelmingly passed the the Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill.

The lodge is President Kenyatta’s base when he is touring Mt Kenya.

Sagana is not unlike Kabarnet Gardens in Nairobi, which exuded power during  the former President Daniel Moi.

The former president had started occupying the house in from 1967 when he was appointed the vice president. Even after ascending to the presidency in 1978, Moi resided at Karbarnet Gardens.