Kibathi Muigai.
Of all the Mwakenya convicts, gemstones dealer Kibathi Muigai should have been a figure of interest. Yet, when he was sentenced to six years in prison in 1988 for being part of a group the Daniel Moi regime labelled subversive, even the boldest newspapers dared not disclose that he was Jomo Kenyatta’s nephew.
Cloaked in deliberate anonymity, the media conveniently labelled him as “Koigi’s recruit,” borrowing the very words of Deputy Public Prosecutor Bernard Chunga, who sought to tether Muigai’s fate to Kenya’s most famous dissident, the exiled Koigi wa Wamwere.
By incarcerating a member of the Kenyatta family, President Moi sought to send a chilling message to the radicals within the James Muigai and Minne Ngina’s homestead: no one was untouchable. Kibathi became the unwitting sacrificial lamb in Moi’s intricate political chess game, a symbol of the lengths to which the regime would go to dismantle opposition and assert dominance.
Kibathi, then a spirited 35-year-old, would ultimately pay the steepest price. Arrested on the fateful day of July 18, 1988, he disappeared into the labyrinthine dungeons of torture, surfacing only on August 8 before Chief Magistrate Joseph Mango. For three harrowing weeks, he languished in the shadowy depths of Nyayo House, his captors coldly claiming in court that he had been “helping the police with investigations.”
It was reported that when Kibathi, popularly known as “Wa-Ngina”, finally emerged, he was a shadow of his former self — broken, battered, and teetering on the edge of mental collapse. Desperate to escape the torment of the chambers, he yielded to the charges levelled against him, clutching at the faint hope of finding solace in a prison cell.
By the time he died last week, aged 72, ‘wa-Ngina” had yet to tell his story to the public and kept away from scrutiny, concentrating on the business that he loved: mining.
According to media reports, it was said that when the charges were read, Kibathi, unrepresented and visibly shaken, was asked to enter a plea. His response was a haunting echo of surrender: “I have understood everything. It is correct.”
In a poignant moment of forced mitigation, his voice faltered as he parroted the well-rehearsed lines designed to appease the system: “I will never repeat this offence. I apologise to the Head of State and the people of Kenya for having joined Mwakenya.”
These words, heavy with coercion, epitomised the cruel theatre of justice that unfolded in those dark days — a desperate script performed by victims seeking to trade the horrors of Nyayo House for the relative reprieve of prison walls.
It was alleged that he had been recruited into Mwakenya in Namanga, receiving $1,000 from Koigi wa Wamwere — a claim that conveniently fed into the narrative implicating the Kenyatta family in the clandestine movement.
Koigi denied ever recruiting Kibathi – after all he, Koigi, was not involved with Mwakenya and was busy building his own Kenya Patriotic Front.
“I never met Andrew Kibathi Muigai…His real crime was that he was a Kikuyu, a nephew of Kenyatta, and did not openly express his support for Moi,” Koigi asserts in his memoir, I Refuse to Die.
The toll on the family was profound, a chapter of anguish recounted by his sister, Senator Beth Mugo, in the Senate chambers. Her voice trembled with the weight of memory as she detailed the harrowing search for her brother and the unrelenting injustices he endured.
“He was tortured in Nyayo House for over two weeks,” she revealed. “He was then taken to court at 6pm, rushed to Naivasha, and despite our desperate attempts, he never received a fair trial or justice. They branded him as Mwakenya, accusing him of plotting to overthrow the government,” she said.
Beth’s plea extended beyond her brother’s tragic fate to the countless others swept up in the era’s merciless political purges. “So many young people were branded Mwakenya adherents. They deserve either compensation or an apology.”
Among the Muigai siblings, Kibathi was an understated figure, eclipsed by the more prominent political profiles of his brothers and sister: Ngengi Muigai, Beth Mugo, and Captain Kungu and his cousin, President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Born in 1953, at the height of the State of Emergency, Kibathi attended Muhoho Secondary School and Starehe Boys Centre. He then joined prisons service where he became a commandant of Athi River Prison before he left to join his sister Beths’ gemstones business which took him to various mines in the region. He started mining and trading in gemstones — like others in the Kenyatta family – the scandals and turf wars notwithstanding.
He then emerged as one of Kenya’s pioneer African rally drivers, navigating the gruelling Safari Rally alongside Arshad Khan and sponsored by his elder brother Ngengi Muigai, who was heading a vehicle franchise. His daring exploits placed him in the ranks of early legends like Peter Shiyukah — himself a Permanent Secretary under Kenyatta — Gregory Kibiti, and the indomitable Mukundi brothers.
Kibathi’s prowess and audacity would later inspire future rally stars like Jonathan Moi and Patrick Njiru, forging a path for African excellence in a sport once dominated by expatriates.
Though his name is often overshadowed by the broader Kenyatta legacy, Kibathi’s story is complex and is weaved within Kenya’s history. He was jocular, free-spirited, business-minded and lived his live well. He was a man who never allowed the Mwakenya tag to become his identity.
