- Nyachae who died yesterday aged 88 years was also a successful enterpreneur
- Nyandusi was married to 15 wives and has been described as a disciplinarian who would never take no for an answer.
Image: FILE
Simeon Nyachae, son of colonial chief Musa Nyandusi, was many things to many people.
To his admirers, he was a resilient and intelligent man — two traits that saw him enter the inner sanctums of power and bestrode Kenyan politics like the proverbial colossus for nearly three decades.
However, to his opponents he was arrogant, dictatorial, overbearing, self-righteous and pushy.
But one thing that is not in dispute is that Nyachae easily turned whatever he touched into gold.
The former powerful minister who died yesterday aged 88 years was a successful entrepreneur who built a massive business empire.
Transport CAS Chris Obure on Monday termed Nyachae's death a massive loss to the Abagusii community.
"Many of us who had an opportunity to know him will remember him as a person whose life is worthy emulating, a mentor and leader who pursued the ideals he believed in," the former Kisii senator said.
Obure said Nyachae has left a legacy of personal success through hard work and personal discipline which propelled him to the pinnacle of the civil service and corporate enterprise.
From banking, real estate, transport, banking, manufacturing and agriculture, Nyachae was a man of means and one of Kenya's wealthiest politicians.
His father, Nyandusi married 15 wives. He was said to be a disciplinarian who made important decisions such as which girl his son would marry.
Nyandusi would also decide how many wives his sons would have, when to terminate school and which career they would pursue.
In a span of three years, for instance, and while in school aged about 22 years, Nyachae had taken three wives at the insistence of his father and clan elders.
From a District Officer in dying years of colonialism in 1960, Nyachae steadily rose up the ranks within the provincial administration to become a powerful provincial commissioner between 1765-1979.
Raised by one of Kenya's last paramount chiefs, Nyachae's love for formal education backed by the colonialists saw his father Nyandusi send him to the UK to study public administration in 1957.
Barely months into his posting as DO in Kangundo Division in 1960, his father again sent him to back to Churchill College, Cambridge, London for a diploma course in public administration.
Armed with his education and the goodwill of his father, Nyachae's elevation in the civil service administration was certain as he rose to become a District Commissioner in 1963, shortly upon his return from UK.
In 1979, President Daniel Moi created a powerful position of Chief Secretary and moved Nyachae from PC Central to become the new holder of the post formally known as permanent secretary for Development Coordination in the Office of the President.
Although Nyachae's new permanent secretaryship in the Office of the President gave him few staff, he assumed control of the Cabinet secretariat and had Moi's ear on matters of policy as the new centre of power in government.
During the Nyayo era, Nyachae was perhaps the country's most powerful principal secretary ever as the in-charge of development coordination in the Office of the President.
Over and above his illustrious career in the civil service, Nyachae ran a chain of businesses ranging from agriculture, banking, real estate, transportat and manufacturing based in all major cities in Kenya.
Nyachae was also famed for crafting an ambitious grassroots economic reform programme in 1983 dubbed as the District Focus for Rural Development, an affirmative action plan targeting to decentralise development.
The District Focus programme revolutionised the government's approach to development by giving people at the district levels power to make decisions on the projects they wanted implemented, the harbinger of the current devolution.
Nyachae at one time suspended development projects for at least three years in order to cut down development expenditure while bankers, teachers, postal workers and other professionals took to the streets to protest his austere budget announced by in 1998.
Under his watch, the civil service was downsized over a three-year period. He also initiated reduction of interest rates, public expenditure and enhanced revenue collection.
Nyachae was the Kisii community's political kingpin for over three decades whose exit has left a huge vacuum.
The 2002 presidential candidate on the Ford People party ticket had in 1998 shocked the country while serving as Finance minister when he admitted that the government was bankrupt and that the economy was in the intensive care unit.
It was a rare but truthful admission from the very man who had been charged with the responsibility of planning for the country’s money.
Speaking during an inter-parties caucus at Mombasa Continental Resort on April 24, 1998, Nyachae said the economy was ailing and needed to be fixed.
Nyachae spelt out measures to tame corruption which had been identified as one of the major causes of the country’s economic woes but Moi punished him by transferring him to the Industry docket.
The strong-headed politician decided to resign from government after President Moi transferred him from the influential Finance docket.
Nyachae would later quit the then ruling party Kanu and joined the Ford People outfit ahead of the 2002 historic presidential duel that swept Kanu out of power.
Prior to his exit from government in 1998 , Nyachae had rubbed Moi the wrong way when in 1988 Kanu's governing council blocked him from running after declared his interest in a parliamentary seat.
Then MPs David Onyancha, Chris Obure, Zachary Onyonka and Andrew Omanga crafted a political scheme to bar Nyachae's entry into politics.
A grassroots mobiliser par excellence, Nyachae was unbowed and took Kanu head on in the 1992 General Election and despite the falling out he won the Nyaribari Chache parliamentary seat in the first multi-party elections.
Nyachae's biggest surprise was after he decided to become a staunch Kanu supporter after winning the Nyaribari Chache parliamentary seat despite Kanu having denied him a ticket to contest.
Because of his newfound camaraderie with Moi, Nyachae was appointed to head the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Marketing and later served as minister for Land Reclamation, Regional and Water Development.
As the bearer of his father's big dreams, Nyachae lost an opportunity to end the Nyayo era's 24 year-stranglehold on power when key opposition bigwigs including Raila Odinga dodged him out of the Narc coalition.
Nyachae had hoped on Raila'is endorsement as the joint opposition candidate to take on Kanu's Uhuru Kenyatta but was snubbed despite holding a crucial meeting with the Narc luminaries at Serena Hotel.
David Musila, a former minister, in his memoirs Seasons of Hope writes that the meeting was attended by Kalonzo Musyoka, Raila Odinga, Nyachae, Moody Awori, George Saitoti and William ole Ntimama.
"The multitude was anxious. No one had an answer to that question. When it was Raila Odinga’s turn to speak, he suddenly shouted his now famous Kibaki Tosha (Kibaki suffices) slogan," Musila wrote.
Raila's surprise declaration of Mwai Kibaki Tosha at a mammoth Uhuru Park rally hours later jolted Nyachae's ambitions for the country's top office after he came a distant third with 5.8 per cent of the 2002 election.
Nyachae managed to get 14 MPs on the Ford People ticket, including sweeping all nine Kisii parliamentary seats then.
When President Kibaki's NARC coalition started to crumble after the 2002 General Election following claims of betrayal and a falling out over a dishonoured MoU, the President reached out to Nyachae to stabilise the government. Kibaki appointed Nyachae the minister for Energy and later Roads.
Ahead of the 2007 General Election, Nyachae stood by Kibaki and joined PNU but like what happened to most of the President's allies, the MP lost his Nyaribari Chache seat.
The lose dented Nyachae's stranglehold as the Kisii political kingmaker as most of the Ford People MPs fell by the wayside in the 2007 elections forcing him to announce his retirement from politics.
Nyachae was a controversial politician whom some critics branded a “loose canon” for speaking out his mind without fear.
Nyachae was in 2007 forced to fight off links to the outlawed Chinkororo gang after Ruto, then Eldoret North MP and then area MP Omingo Magara, were attacked.
Ruto and Magara were injured when armed youths attacked them with arrows on their way to attend a youth Harambee function convened by Nyachae at Nyamarambe, South Mugirango Constituency.
In 2011, during a Jubilee campaign event in Kisii, Nyachae admitted he had ordered that Ruto and Magara be taught a lesson.
“When he(Ruto) and Magara came to attack me in South Mugirango I knew they were trying something I had perfected when I was a youth and they got their dose,” Nyachae recacalled 2007 incident.