And from being the country's most popular cereal to ruining political careers, the maize issue has become a hot potato in the political arena.
Now, the importation of GMO maize is threatening not just to evoke past memories of massive past scandals but also potentially set the country on the making of another storm.
Over the decades, new administrations have often been confronted by maize ghosts that have always exposed the soft-underbelly of the big boys in government.
Like his predecessors, whose governments were rocked by maize scandals, President William Ruto has found himself in familiar, yet slippery grounds.
The government's planned importation of 10 million bags of duty free maize is threatening to spoil Ruto's honeymoon, less than 80 days in office.
Already, the opposition has alleged of a wider scheme by maize barons to take advantage of the window to hurt the Kenyan farmer by saturating the market with cheap GMO maize.
The government's move to allow genetically modified foods into the country has triggered massive political uproar, with critics warning the state was poisoning its own population.
The political storm over the importation of GMOs is also threatening to jolt President Ruto's ruling coalition, as well as claim his Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria, if MPs make good their threat to impeach him.
Lifting the lid on the confusion in government, politicians from the President's Kenya Kwanza coalition are reading from different scrips about the maize importation.
There is growing mutiny in his camp, with his own MPs from maize- growing regions of the Rift Valley and Western Kenya rebelling against the government's move to import maize.
Interestingly, Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei, a key Ruto lieutenant, has opposed the importation, terming it “the making of another maize scandal”.
“It seems there is a deliberate move to continue killing maize farming in the country as was seen in the previous regime," Cherargei said.
There are fears that cartels that have controlled the sector for years could take advantage of the maize crisis to pull up another mega scandal that could dent Ruto's image.
"The cartels are now back into business and this time they appear more aggressive and ruthless,” Cherargei said.
The failure by the state to gazette the importation of maize this week exposed the intrigues roiling the Executive, especially after a ship docked at the Port of Mombasa on Tuesday with 18,000 tonnes of maize.
The Kenya Ports Authority said in a statement Monday that some 37 vessels are expected at the port in the coming days.
But National Biosafety Authority CEO Roy Mugiira was on Thursday quoted as saying the ship that was reported to have docked in Mombasa has its origins from the port of Maputo.
"It is bringing in white maize that has been procured by WFP [World Food Programme] for purposes of emergency food relief," Muggira said.
Hard questions had been raised as to how the government would allow the ship to dock before the state would release legal instruments for the importation of duty free maize.
It is not clear how President Ruto will navigate the situation to ensure it doesn't mutate into a grand scandal reminiscent of past maize scams.
In 2009, Ruto, then Agriculture minister, was purportedly suspended by then Prime Minister Raila Odinga over involvement in a maize scandal.
This was a scandal that became public in January 2009, over the sale of imported maize.
In late 2008, the ban on importation of maize was lifted by the government to allow capable businessmen to import maize to supplement the local produce, which was short of the minimum required to satisfy the local market.
In early 2009, after parliamentary debate on the scandal, Ruto was accused of illegally selling maize by then Ikolomani MP Bonny Khalwale (Public Accounts Committee chairman).
All the documents bearing the National Cereals and Produce Board seal that linked Ruto to the illegal sale of maize had been accepted by Parliament.
The scandal alleged that briefcase millers, existing only on paper, some of whom were defunct at the time when the scandal unfolded, were awarded large quantities of maize by the Strategic Grain Reserve.
They accomplished this by inflating their milling per-hour capacity and having four Permanent secretaries approve them.
The briefcase millers and local businesses that were either awarded quotas by the SGR or awarded import permits by the NCPB respectively might have also re-directed the bags of maize outside the country to avoid price controls stated by the government and thus make bigger profits.
Some of the maize imported in 2009 by local businesses was certified unfit for human consumption and might have been released into the market after directions of senior government officials.
"I have no problem resigning, I was not born a minister. However, I would not dignify lies, I am innocent," Ruto said at the time, as the nation’s attention remained riveted on him and each of his moves.
He had dismissed the maize scam as "one that never was", saying it was a creation of individuals out to bring him down by tarnishing his name.
"I will not resign on basis of rumours, half truths and lies. Where is the scandal? I cannot see it unless the definition of scandal has changed," Ruto said.
Attempts by Raila to suspend Ruto over the Sh2 billion maize subsidy scandal were thwarted after President Mwai Kibaki reinstated him as the appointing authority.
But Raila was also forced to fight back over a maize scandal saying neither himself nor any member of his family ate from the plate of Sh3.6 billion maize scam.
A report by a parliamentary committee had implicated the son of the then Prime Minister along with NCPB managing director Gideon Misoi, Agriculture PS Romano Kiome and his Special Programmes counterpart Mohammed Ali.
Wikileaks in 2011 claimed Raila attempted to suspend Ruto to divert attention from his family’s involvement in the maize scam.
In 2018, former Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri found himself in the eye of a Sh1.9 billion corruption storm.
Traders had taken advantage of the attractive Sh3,200 per 90kg bag of maize payout that the government offered farmers to import maize and supply it to NCPB.
Kiunjuri later got a public scolding from President Uhuru Kenyatta, who warned him against paying out money meant for maize farmers to unscrupulous traders and well-connected individuals warning, "try pay and you are going to see what will happen".
FRESH STORM
But with the importation window for GMO maize likely to be opened, politicians are warning of the making of another scandal.
Narc Kenya party leader Martha Karua, the former Azimio la Umoja presidential running mate, alleged of a scheme by top government officials to swindle Kenyans.
“Maize, maize, maize. Source of daily meal for a majority of Kenyans. To wheeler dealers, a get-rich-quick medium imported often needlessly at the expense of the local farmer,” Karua tweeted.
With the maize agenda becoming an eyesore in government, it evokes ugly memories of how the cereal has jolted successful governments and nearly ruined the careers of bigwigs.
A close look at Kenya’s history exposes a litany of maize scandals that roiled politicians, business leaders, entrepreneurs and their allies.
While some would have survived the scandals that entangled them, others would live to regret.
The maize snapshot from Independence reveals that scandals around the staple food are as old as the Kenyan Republic.
It goes without being said that any maize shortage is succeeded by a massive scandal, usually triggered by importation of duty free cereals.
Kenya's first constitutional amendment in 1975 was triggered by a massive maize scandal that roiled then powerful Cabinet minister Paul Ngei, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s close ally.
The making of the country's first maize scandal happened way back in 1964 when the country was grappling with a biting maize shortage.
In a plan by Mzee Kenyatta's government to cushion silos, the state ordered for the importation of 250,000 bags of yellow maize, with Ngei entrusted to handle the maize docket.
However, as fate would have it, Ngei — the Minister for Co-operatives and Marketing — would be sucked into the scandal, which also entangled his wife.
Ngei, the independence hero and one of the Kapenguria Six who had been incarcerated together with Mzee Kenyatta, was accused of meddling with the Maize Marketing Board.
As the chairperson of the Maize Marketing Board, a predecessor of the National Cereals and Produce Board, he was accused of smuggling the crop leading to shortages in 1964 and 1965.
Kenyatta would later form a commission of inquiry to unearth the reasons behind the scandal, with Justice Chanan Singh charged with digging up the dirt in Ngei’s ministry.
Singh’s team found the reasons behind the maize shortage partly lay outside Ngei’s doorstep - with his wife Emma. They traced a batch of ‘lost’ maize to a cereal shop in Kangundo, Emma Stores.
It also emerged that his second wife had been designated as the personal secretary to the chairman of the board. It was, however, not a crime to have a spouse on board.
But the inquiry team concluded that “it was undesirable for wives of influential politicians and top civil servants to seek employment in their husband’s offices”.
“We find that Mr Ngei had by his own conduct... shown himself to be closely connected with the business of Uhuru Millers and that he cannot now escape criticism for whatever resulted from that close connection,” read report in part.
Ngei was suspended as minister after being condemned for six months. Kenyatta, however, decided to intervene.
The President summoned then Attorney General Charles Njonjo to State House on a Monday, and directed him to draft a constitutional amendment that Parliament would pass the following day.
Kenyatta dangled House recess to prompt MPs to pass changes that would allow him to pardon Ngei after he found himself out in the political cold. It worked, and Constitution Amendment Act No 1 of 1975 became law.
It was dubbed the Ngei Amendment, and gave the President the power to pardon a person found guilty, hence not eligible to vie or hold public office.
Ngei was later absolved of the allegations and found his way back into the Cabinet, serving in Kenyatta and later in Daniel Moi’s governments.
Edited by Eliud Kibii
