PRESIDENT MWAI KIBAKI

HIS EXCELLENCY HON. MWAI KIBAKI
 

Emilio Mwai Kibaki a.k.a Baba Jimmy, born on 15^th November 1931, at Gatuyaini village in Othaya division of Nyeri district to a peasant father, Mr. Kibaki Githinji and Mrs. Teresia Wanjiku has been the third president and the commander in chief of the armed forces of Kenya since December 2002. Previously, he has also held several posts and here is a take at a look of his early life.

Academic life

Mwai Kibaki was an exemplary pupil at Gatuyaini School where he started his schooling for two years and completed the Sub “A” and Sub “B” (known as standard one and two). He later joined Karuma Mission School for the three more classes of primary school. He then moved to Mathari school (currently Nyeri High School) between 1944 and 1946 for standard four to six where in addition, he learnt carpentry and masonry as the students were expected to repair furniture and even grew crops as all students were expected to do and over the holidays, earned an extra money as a conductor on buses operated by the defunct Othaya African Bus Union.

After Karima primary school and Nyeri boarding primary schools, he joined Mangu High School between 1947 and 1950 and passed with a maximum of six points in his "O" level examinations.

Having been influenced by the veterans of the First and Second world wars in his native village, he considered becoming a soldier in his final year at Mang’u High School.

He then proceeded to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda as the recruitment of the Kikuyu, Meru and Aembu into the army flopped. He studied Economics, History and Political Science and graduated best in his class in 1955 with a First Class Honours Degree (BA) in Economics. After his graduation, he took up an appointment as an assistant sales manager Shell company of East Africa, Uganda Division.

During the same year, he earned a scholarship entitling him to a postgraduate studies in any British university. He then took it up and enrolled at the prestigious London School of Economics for a B.Sc. in Public Finance, graduating with a distinction.

He then went back to Makerere University in 1958 and taught as an assistant lecturer in the Economics department until 1960.

In 1962,   he married Lucy Muthoni, the daughter to a Church Minister, who was then a secondary school teacher.

Political career

In 1960, he left academics for politics, when he gave up his job at Makerere and made a comeback to Kenya and became the Executive Officer of Kenya African National Union(KANU), at the request of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga(who went to become Kenya’s first Vice President).Kibaki then helped to draft the Kenya’s independence constitution.

In 1963, he was elected the Member of Parliament for Donholm Constituency (subsequently known as Bahati and now Makadara Constituency) in Nairobi. His election as the MP was the onset of a long political career. In the same year, 1963, he was appointed to be the Permanent Secretary for the treasury, appointed assistant minister of Finance and chairman of the Economic and Planning Commission. He was then promoted to be the minister for Commerce and industry in 1966. In 1969, he became Minister for Finance and Economic Planning till 1982.

In 1974, Kibaki facing serious competition for the Donholm Parliamentary seat from Mrs, Jael Mbogo, whom he had defeated narrowly and controversially in 1969, he changed his political base to his home village in Othaya, where he was elected the same year, 1974, and rated in the top 100 by the Time Magazine as those who could be able to lead in the world. He was then elected MP for Othaya in the subsequent 1979, 1983, 1988,1992,1997,2002 and in 2007.

When Daniel Moi, succeeded President Jomo Kenyatta as the president in 1978, Kibaki was elevated to be the Vice President and kept the finance portfolio until President Moi changed his ministerial portfolio from finance to Home Affairs in 1982.at that time when he was the Finance Minister, Kenya enjoyed a relative prosperity fuelled by a commodities boom, especially Coffee  but however, at the same time he was the Finance Minister, the Nation saw the collapse of the industries like the Kisumu Molasses that was just revived recently by the Prime Minister, Rail Odinga.

However, in 1988, he fell out of favour with President Moi and was dropped as a Vice President and moved to Ministry of Health.

However, in a few months before the introduction of the multi-party politics in 1992, he infamously declared that agitating for multi-party democracy and trying to dislodge KANU from power was like, “trying to cut down a fig tree with a razor blade.”

It was a great surprise that the nation when the country received the resignation news of Kibaki from the Government and that of leaving KANU on a Christmas day in December 1991, only days after repeal of the section 2A of the constitution, which retained multi-party system. Soon after his resignation, he formed the Democratic Party (DP) and entered the presidential race in the multiparty elections of 1992.he was criticised as an “opportunist’ who unlikely his two main presidential opposition opponents, Kenneth Matiba and Jaramogi Oginga, was taking advantage of multi-partism despite not having fought for it.he came third and made an attempt in 1997 and came second again when Moi beat a divided opposition to retain presidency.

In 1988, he became leader of official opposition with the Democratic Party becoming the official opposition party in parliament.

2002 politics

In readiness to the 2002 elections, his party affiliated with several other opposition parties to form National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK). A group of disappointed KANU presidential aspirants led by Raila Odinga, walked out of KANU in protest after being overlooked by outgoing president Moi when Moi had founding father Jomo Kenyatta’s son, Uhuru Kenyatta nominated as the party’s presidential candidate, and hurriedly formed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). NAK later joined with LDP to form National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). On 14^th October 2002, at a large rally in Uhuru Park, Kibaki was nominated as the coalition flagbearer’s after Raila Odinga made a famous and historic declaration, “KIBAKI TOSHA”

On December 3^rd, Kibaki was injured in a road accident on his way back to Nairobi from a campaign meeting in Machakos junction just forty kilometres from Nairobi. He was hospitalised in Nairobi and then subsequently in London after sustaining fractures. He still walks rather awkwardly as a result of these injuries.

On 27 December, Kibaki and the NARC coalition, won the elections with a landslide over KANU, getting 66% of the votes against 31% that of Uhuru Kenyatta.