Tycoons who set the pace for the young

Murang’a County is home to many of Kenya’s top tycoons. These well-known people fall into two main categories, depending on their backgrounds and how they acquired the staggering wealth they are credited with today.

In the first category are people who came from humble beginnings, had little formal education and worked extremely hard to make their billions.

Self-made men, they became community heroes and were much-admired role models who inspired generations of aspiring entrepreneurs.

Among the best known of them are Charles Rubia, Maina Wanjigi and the late Gerishon Kirima.

In the second category are well-educated people, usually with impressive professional backgrounds, who were more or less armed from the very beginning with the skills and determination to succeed.

In this category fall such well-known figures as the veteran politician and pioneering businessman Kenneth Matiba.

Also there is Peter Munga, the man credited together with John Mwangi and James Mwangi for the phenomenal success of Equity Bank.

And with them in this category is Jimnah Mbaru, whose name has for many years featured prominently in banking, finance and Nairobi Stock Exchange circles: the same man who stunned those who knew him when he took time off from business to pursue a law degree at the University of Nairobi.

What many did not know is that Mbaru has always had an insatiable thirst for formal education.

It was probably that drive that saw him, in his youth, blazing his way from Kirogo High School in Murang’a to Strathmore College, before earning degrees from Kenyan and foreign universities.

Yet these names are only a small sample of Murang’a personalities believed to have made billions. They are probably better known than others simply because they have for years been in the public spotlight.

Numerous other eminent people from Murang’a have kept low profiles, but are said to be in the same wealth league as those named above.

They include the stockbroker and one-time Kiharu MP Ngenye Kariuki, lawyer Kembi Gitura, who also served a term as MP for the same constituency and as a diplomat.

Others include Nduati Kariuki, once MP for Makuyu and still holding public office today, and Samuel K. Macharia of Royal Media fame, who is recognised as one of the top personalities from Gatanga Constituency.

From other places in Murang’a are William Njoroge Mbote, who at one time was the managing director of Kenya Pipeline and Kenya Reinsurance Corporation.

Heading those organisations for several years resulted in Mbote’s reputation as one of Murang’a’s top public servants, past and present.

Today he is one of the top business figures and landlords at Kenol trading centre in the same constituency, where one landmark is a plaza owned by his family.

Also belonging to this group of the hardworking wealthy is the self-effacing Bethwell Mareka Gecaga, a veteran intellectual and company executive. He has, in his long career, been associated with major companies like Nation Media Group and British American Tobacco.

Gecaga is also credited with setting up Kenchic and the Imara Daima estate, projects he initiated while at BAT. Coming from a prominent family in Kiharu constituency, his rural home is close to Kenneth Matiba’s.

Like the latter, he is a part of the small group of Murang’a personalities who achieved excellence in the academic world and attended top schools in Kenya during the colonial years before going overseas for further studies.

Equally well-known is his son Udi Gecaga, who at one time headed Tiny Rowland’s Lonrho empire in Kenya, and who married Jeni Kenyatta, daughter of the First President.

Search of fortunes

Apart from the well-educated Murang’a tycoons, there is a large group of low-key business operators from the county whose interests have been scattered around the whole of Kenya since the colonial times.

Coming from different corners of Murang’a, they began their business careers back in colonial times, rising from humble beginnings to become titans of commerce.

A common feature among them is the fact that they left the county many years ago, heading for towns and the city in search of fortunes.

Some of these legendary sons of Murang’a were behind the fabled PK Company, associated with the Kariuki family from Makuyu.

They were also the driving forces behind the Rwathia group from Kangema, whose presence in Nairobi’s River Road continues to this day, as well as the famous Jogoo Kimakia group, still thriving in Thika and elsewhere.

Two of the most prominent members of this group were the late Mwangi wa Kioi from Kiria-ini and his close friend and associate from the same area, Isaac Maina Kabwage.

Such people are well-known figures around the Makadara, Pangani and Kasarani areas, where their family members still maintain the businesses, mostly retail and service sector affairs.

As a result of their successes in a wide range of businesses, these extraordinary movers and shakers have inspired the younger generation of Murang’a entrepreneurs, who in many cases are their own sons and daughters.

They benefited from the excellent education opportunities provided by their parents. Bequeathed with their forefathers’ business values, determination and persistence, the younger generation was set to go places.

But unlike their fathers, however, many have practically abandoned their roots in rural Murang’a, choosing to set up camp in the big towns and the city.

In Nairobi, these people have been dominating the capital’s economics and politics.

They prefer to seek public office in the city. Consequently, such constituencies as Makadara, Kasarani, Starehe and Kamukunji have been their preserves, regularly changing hands between them from Independence.

Only recently has their stranglehold on them been challenged.

This applied at Nairobi’s City Hall, which has been dominated by Murang’a personalities ever since Charles Rubia became the city’s first African mayor in the 1963.