Kibaki married Mary Wambui under customary law in the 1970's

Shortly after Mwai Kibaki was sworn in as President, our sister publication, then Sunday Standard, ran a shocking headline presenting his second wife to the world.

Must be a mistake, shocked Kenyans though, because Kibaki was no Stanley Oloitiptip (the well-nourished former Cabinet minister with a string of wives). He was Makerere and UK trained, urbane, well spoken with the faint British accent associated with most post-independence Kenyan leaders.

He played gold for crying out loud at the posh Muthaiga Country Club, in whose neighbourhood he had raised his children, who went to the top drawer St Mary’s High School. Polygamy? Kibaki oozed ‘posh’, and such men were simply not expected to marry more than one wife.  

Having been a Cabinet minister and Vice President for nearly 25 years, his wife, Lucy Muthoni, was a well-known public figure. An alumnus of the fabled Alliance Girls before training as a teacher and becoming a college tutor and Principal, she was the perfect catch for a young, ambitious Kenyan man boasting of two university degrees by 1959.

On the other hand, Kibaki and ‘Narc activist’ Mary Wambui, who was reported to be his second wife, made for strange bedfellows. A woman of humble beginnings and modest education whose life experiences as tea girl turned secretary in a rural town political party office seemed so far removed from the hallowed grounds Kibaki strode as an economist, Cabinet minister and Vice President, their union demonstrated that love doesn’t give a damn.  

 

Two wives

The President’s office did refute claims that Kibaki had two wives, but pictures said otherwise: Lucy Kibaki and her daughter Judy holding hands with Wambui; Wambui posing with Kibaki’s sons, Jimmy and David; Wambui with Kibaki’s father, Mzee Githinji. Bride price had been paid, the Standard reported.

There was more. The ‘Narc Activist’, as the media christened Wambui, lived in a residence guarded by the elite General Service Unit, from which the President’s guard is mostly drawn and went shopping with the same officers in tow.

But it appeared Lucy, a feisty woman with Nyeri blood in her veins, wasn’t enjoying the charade. During a New Year’s Eve party in 2003, when vice president Moody Awori raised a glass to Mrs Kibaki as the “second lady”, she walked out of the state banquet. Awori later said it was a slip of the tongue.

Not so lucky was a senior government officer who referred to her as “first lady Mama Lucy Wambui” during a Jamhuri Day state banquet in 2007. According to the Standard newspaper, Mrs Kibaki immediately rose from her seat on the dais “and briskly walked to the MC, whom she slapped across the face”.

But March, 3 2009, proved that the First Lady had had it when President Mwai Kibaki, who in his own words, was in a foul mood, hurriedly convened a press briefing at State House to address this second wife issue. Flanked by the First Lady who appeared disturbed, emotional and restless, eyes blazing, Kibaki told journalists: “I want to make it very clear that I have only one dear wife Lucy and I do not have any other. The truth is known, I have only my four children.

 “Anyone who is bent on that course will see me in court or wherever he will see me. We shall deal with him, no other way whatsoever; there is no genuine purpose for people wanting to spread lies about myself.”

Both the President and the First Lady then invited journalists to raise any questions: “If you have any question to ask, ask now or never,” stated the First Lady.

For obvious reasons, no hand was raised. What triggered the tirade? Two days earlier, former Kabete MP Paul Muite had indicated on national television that Kibaki had married Mary Wambui under customary law in the 1970s.

Although the matter seemed to have rested, Wambui nonetheless continued to enjoy VIP security. A source told the Nairobian that she would pop into State House through a special gate and that the guards loved her because she never left them empty handed.

“Tukiona Mama tulikuwa tunajua tutashiba (we always ate well when she visited State House),” one said.

In the Standard this week, veteran journalist Kipkoech Tanui says it is such visits that got State House Comptroller and long-time Kibaki friend Matere Keriri into trouble with the First Lady and sent him fleeing from her wrath.

 

Wambui the pariah

“Keriri, who managed the President’s diary, had accompanied him to inspect a power project in Nyanza and when he extended his hand to greet Mama Lucy at the airport, she walked right past him as though she had not seen him. When the two met at the project site later that day, Keriri took to his heels. Apparently, he had allowed ‘a guest’ into State House,” Tanui noted.

Wambui became such a pariah that all efforts were made to bar her from Presidential functions. And when she campaigned to replace the retiring Kibaki as Othaya MP in 2013, the ‘family’ presented figure crunching current MP Gichuki Mugambi who chaired Othaya Development Authority, a development lobby group initiated by Kibaki candidate.

But voters had other ideas. In that election, they turned their backs on Mugambi and handsomely rewarded the tea girl-turned-TNA activist, Mary Wambui by sending her to replace the political giant she privately called ‘husband’.   

 

Was she really Kibaki’s wife?

When we sought her condolence message to the fallen retired President, a woman who identified herself as Wambui’s niece, Wamuyu, requested that she (Wambui) be given time to mourn her husband.

“Let her mourn her husband in peace,” she said. In a past interview with The Standard, Wambui insisted that she was married to Kibaki.

“I am married. And that is all I will say about that. There are two things in life, your private life and public life. I do not want to talk about my private life. But I know I am married.”

She further explained why she remained unbothered by any talk on her marital status. “Why would I think about what people are going to say about it? I have confidence in myself and my God.”

On the issue of not being introduced to the nation, Wambui claimed she was not bitter since even the first President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta introduced Mama Ngina Kenyatta as the first lady but left Wahu and Edna yet they were his wives.

“I don’t feel restricted, I have my time with him just as before he became President. I’m his wife and not being made public does not bother me,” Wambui said.

Feisty educationist Lucy Muthoni shared the intellect and sophistication that Kibaki acquired in his adult life, while Mary Wambui, the grassroots mobilizer, was probably a nostalgic embrace from his equally humble beginnings as a goatherd in Othaya. The distinguished, aloof Member for Othaya had a good thing going. Mix and match?