He was the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defense when citizens in the then Northern Frontier District (now North Eastern) were forced into concentration camps and a large number of animals killed in efforts to crush the secessionist Shifta agitation.
Jeremiah Kiereini oversaw, as the top Ministry of Defense bureaucrat, a ruthless response to the a secessionist conflict in which ethnic Somalis aggressively agitated to be secede from Kenya and join Somalia next door.
He died on Tuesday at 90.
So fierce was the conflict that the Kenyan counter-insurgency forces killed tens of thousands of herds of cattle in the predominantly pastoralist region.
The Shifta war raged between 1963 to 67.
He was also at the ministry as the PS when Idi Amin Dada, president of Uganda, threatened to annex part of Kenya.
Kiereini schooled at Alliance and Makerere University before joining the civil service at the dawn of Independence.
He was first African District Commissioner in Embu and in June 1963 was promoted to the position of deputy civil secretary for Eastern Region.
He would rise through the ranks to be Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet. He was appointed by President Daniel Moi to replace Geoffrey Kariithi who had fallen out of favour with the powers that be.
Kiereini was to President Moi what Francis Muthaura and Francis Kimemia were to President Kibaki and what Joseph Kinyua currently is to President Kenyatta, preserving state power.
Petired President Moi yesterday eulogized him as "a key cornerstone among the building blocks of service delivery to the people of Kenya."
Kiereini's death had deeply saddened him, the statement attributed to Moi said.
Uhuru, whose father Kiereini served diligently, said "his sterling performance at the helm of the public service gave us the foundation upon which the successes we are witnessing in the sector today are anchored."
Kiereini had vast interest in insurance, banking, hotel and farming sectors, owning close to 400 acres of coffee bestriding the counties of Kiambu and Nairobi.
While many families in coffee growing areas, predominantly Central Kenya, live on proceeds of the farming, Kiereini said he did it for leisure.
At a time when his rich billionaire club mates were uprooting coffee trees for real estate due to the ever dwindling coffee fortunes, Kiereini decided to keep his, saying he did the farming for "sentimental value."
So wealth-minded was he that even after leaving government, he did not join politics as is the common practice with senior government officials keen to capture and consolidate power.
Believing that wealth is in enterprising, he joined the East African Breweries as chairman for a record 24 years as the chair of the board, transforming it from Kenya Breweries Limited to EABL.
He would later join the board of CMC Holdings as a member but exited under a cloud of controversy, which he fought hard to clear to his death.
Kiereini was married to Eunice Muringo Kiereini, a former Kenya's Chief Nursing Officer.
The family yesterday announced that his remains will be interred on May 16.
