Sagana, the State Lodge where 'real power' resides

Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri District in December 1951 [File]

When President Uhuru Kenyatta touches down at Sagana State Lodge on Monday, he will be walking on hallowed grounds at the sunset of his reign where one of the world’s longest-serving monarchs breathed her first air as queen.

It was on these lawns that Prince William gently walked his wife Princess Elizabeth in 1952 and gently broke the tragic news that catapulted Princess Elizabeth into Queen Elizabeth.

Ironically, although she had been given the gift on November 20, 1947, she saw it for the first time in February 1952 but by then her status had changed. It was here that she learnt that she was now the queen of the British empire.

This was one of their homes away from London which had been “gifted” to her by the people of Kenya to celebrate her wedding. To mark her wedding, Princess Elizabeth had received 2,500 gifts from across the world.

And what a gift it was: a hunting and fishing lodge tucked at the edge of the forest, which the Associated Press had described as a “$5,600 hunting lodge in the darkest Africa”.

This gift was, however, returned to the people of Kenya in 1963 by the queen and was accepted by the then prime minister Jomo Kenyatta, who declared:

“The Prime Minister of Kenya, Hon Jomo Kenyatta, has gratefully accepted the gift on behalf of the government. The government intends to use the Royal Lodge in the way proposed by Her Majesty and hope that she herself will come and stay there....”

Today, chances of the 95-year-old queen visiting Sagana as Jomo Kenyatta had once wished are very slim. As Uhuru hosts what could be one of his last meetings at the historic lodge, the area MP, Rigathi Gachagua will be wishing that his former boss explains why the president dumped his deputy.

Kenyans will be waiting to see whether Uhuru will live up to his promise of spilling the beans on his deputy and giving directions as to who his successor will be. There are already indications that the script written by President Mwai Kibaki in 2008 when he formed his government and ceded half to Raila Odinga is about to be rewritten.

It is at Sagana that Raila and Kibaki cobbled up the cabinet. The lodge's proximity to Mt Kenya is telling and what happens next may have some semblance of the events of that dark February, 70 years ago, when a princess ascended to the throne. But here surrounded by the dense jungle infested with wild animals, the hunter can become the hunted.