Inside Mwai Kibaki’s State House: The battles that defined his presidency
Politically, Lucy Kibaki was in charge of the happenings at State House, always calling the shots.
What you need to know:
- . In the corridors of power, two groups had emerged, each trying to outdo the other.
- More importantly, the two women who had the President’s ear were aligned to the two feuding sides
The daggers were usually drawn. And no time was lost. Mwai Kibaki had taken over the presidency on a wheelchair – and he was under constant medical attention. Nature abhors a vacuum and State House was a silent battle ground.
Kibaki was torn between two groups. Perhaps three. The old Muthaiga group; and the new Hurlingham group. The third, the Odinga group, which would have wanted to be part of the drama, was contained in a political deep-freezer and restricted to public rallies and press conferences. The best it could do was talk of a moribund MoU but nobody was taking note.
To understand the Kibaki presidency, one has to understand the thinking and the drama that went on between these two groups –and the two most powerful women in the Kibaki regime: Mary Wambui and First Lady Lucy Kibaki.
One Friday, I was summoned by Lucy to State House to explain why I was writing negative stories on her. I went. When I arrived, I should have said like Lady Gaga: “It was my delusion and naivety that brought me here”, But luckily, after I had waited in a room for two hours, ready to face one of the most powerful women in Kenya, a miracle happened, and the First Lady left State House. Phew! That was close.
Politically, Lucy Kibaki was in charge at State House, while Wambui's Mageta Road residence in Lavington — a palatial house near the Methodist Church that once served as the official residence of the South African High Commissioner — became an important address, too.
I realised how Wambui was networked; as soon as I stepped out of State House, my phone rang. It was one of her hangers-on asking me whether I had met the First Lady and what had happened.
This was all part of the daily drama at State House in the Kibaki presidency and which was spilling into the media — and to other institutions of power.
Muthaiga group
To survive within State House grounds, the Hurlingham group had brought Lucy Kibaki into their circle, while the Muthaiga group was much aligned to Wambui, who, at one point, claimed to be Kibaki’s wife.
Wambui was guarded by GSU. In her compound was a flag post — and she had chase cars.
The Muthaiga group consisted of Kibaki’s golfing buddies who used to meet at the Muthaiga Golf Club, or the adjacent Country Club, and were known to have financed his previous two attempts to get into State House. While they had hoped that they would have an upper hand after Kibaki won the presidency, they were shocked when they were upstaged by the Hurlingham group, which consisted of young rowdy and boisterous politicians whose kingpins were Dr Chris Murungaru and Kiraitu Murungi. These were ex-Democratic Party members, or part of a group that was christened Mt Kenya Mafia. To survive, they made sure that the MoU between Raila Odinga’s Liberal Democratic Party and the National Alliance of Kenya (NAK) was not honoured, and that the sharing of power would not happen. It was this move that triggered the feud and anger during Kibaki’s first term, culminating in the 2007/8 post-election violence.
For years, Wambui was recognised by the old Muthaiga group which consisted of University of Nairobi chancellor Joe Barage Wanjui, Eddy Njoroge, Nat Kang’ethe, Peter Kanyago, Solomon Karanja and George Muhoho.
The only person the Muthaiga group had managed to sneak into power was State House comptroller Matere Keriri, whose tenure was marked by the incessant troubles from the First Lady – until he was replaced by the lacklustre Hyslop Ipu.
Family functions
When Wambui first emerged to tell her story, she gave the Standard pictures of her and Lucy during family functions — an indicator that she was recognised within the family. Wambui wanted to preserve her identity. This forced State House on January 6, 2004, to clarify the composition of the President's family. Later, Kibaki called a press conference to say he had only one wife ,as a furious Lucy stood by his side. Those close to the president knew otherwise.
When the first Kibaki regime corruption scandal broke in May 2004, the Muthaiga group was happy that the young jumpy politicians had been caught in trouble. Also dragged into the saga was Kibaki’s personal assistant Alfred Getonga, whose name was mentioned alongside some of the barons behind the Anglo Leasing scandal. Getonga was in the Lucy camp — and by extension, his loyalties lay with the Hurlingham group.
It was also known that the Muthaiga group, graduates of either Makerere or American universities, had over the years had links with major western companies. While Britain would have wanted some insiders to work within the new Kibaki government, the only people they could reach out to were locked out.
Somehow, they managed to have John Githongo appointed as the permanent secretary in charge of Ethics and Governance, but he fell afoul of the Hurlingham group when he started investigating their dealings.
For being close to the Muthaiga group, the Hurlingham group thought Githongo was spying for Britain, and Dr Murungaru said as much.
The Hurlingham group knew how to irritate the British — first for being protective of Kanu over the years and also for failing to back Kibaki when his election was stolen by Moi through duplicate ballots.
The first notable change came when the British Land Rovers were phased out and the tender was open to other competitors. That saw the entry of Toyota and the exit of the age-old symbol of British empire.
More so, Murungi announced that the government had unbanned Mau Mau and that a Dedan Kimathi monument would be erected at the junction of the former Queensway (now Mama Ngina) and the Kimathi streets. That symbolic gesture was the first indicator to London that there was no love lost between the two nations.
Thus, when the Anglo Leasing scandal broke, it was the British High Commissioner, Sir Edward Clay, who became the most vocal diplomat, and his most memorable quote was when he complained that corrupt ministers were “eating like gluttons” and “vomiting on the shoes” of foreign donors.
More so, when Githongo resigned and went into exile in Britain, he was given a fellowship at St Anthony’s College, Oxford.
Many did not understand that when Lucy Kibaki attacked Raila Odinga over the MoU, she was actually echoing the thinking within the Hurlingham group. On the other hand, the Muthaiga group was trying to reconcile both the Roads Minister and State House — but it was hard to penetrate the walls.
The first cracks in the Kibaki presidency came early when the Muthaiga group pushed for the appointment of either Eddy Njoroge, who was in charge of the President’s campaign secretariat near Yaya Centre, or Titus Naikuni as head of Public Service. By then, Mr Keriri, with some neutrality, managed to get his appointment through — though he was later identified with the Muthaiga group. The exit of Keriri meant that the Muthaiga group had no insider in State House, apart from Wambui.
Keriri’s fall came despite denials that camps had sprung up inside State House. His fall came after President Kibaki's 2003 Christmas holiday in Mombasa almost came a cropper as the two camps fought for space around the President. Lucy is said to have thrown out some visitors she disliked. So vicious was the behind-the-scenes battle that Lucy told a public meeting on December 28, 2004, in Mombasa that she was the bridge between the President and other politicians.
With the exit of Keriri, the Hurlingham group did not want another powerful State House comptroller — and that is how they settled on Ipu. But the Muthaiga group then started pushing for the appointment of Stanley Murage, then director of Armstrong and Duncan, as a special adviser, or to replace Francis Muthaura.
It turned out to be a supremacy battle and Lucy was central in defining how the political chess-game was played in State House, where she determined who set foot on its corridors.
Then the mercenary Armenian brother’s scandal broke out and Wambui was mentioned – since her daughter, Winnie, had been taken photos with Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargsyan.
When Winnie identified herself as Winnie Mwai, State House released a statement saying the woman identified as Winnie Wangui Mwai was known as Winfred Florence Wangui. They did not say why were clarifying her name, but those who were in the know read between the lines.
The Hurlingham group, eager to even the score on scandals, tried as much as possible to keep the Artur saga alive and finally, they managed to get the President to appoint a commission of inquiry into the matter. While that silenced the matter – the report was never made public.
How Kibaki kept his cool with all the drama around him was perhaps his biggest test. More so, the incessant wrangles within the coalition had him fail to push through the promised Constitution within the first term. The divisions saw the once vibrant Narc party wither and by the time he was going for the second term, the President was highly vulnerable. More so, it was not even clear whether he had a party. Somebody crafted Party of National Unity (PNU) as lack of political direction saw many of the Kibaki supporters scatter into different parties.
It was these battles that defined his presidency.
[email protected] @johnkamau1
