• As Matiba and the other hotheads took Moi head on, Kibaki was content overseeing the health of Kenyans and not many knew what was going on in his sharp mind.
• In his quiet manner, he built a strong political base that helped ride the waves to be the third president of Republic of Kenya.
Image: FILE
Mwai Kibaki has been described as the man who never saw a fence he didn’t want to sit on.
This seemingly cowardice position was to serve the man well in the many years he was in the opposition until he finally became a resident of State House.
Kibaki was not the kind to work up frenzied crowds like Kenneth Matiba. Neither was he the one to march on the streets screaming ‘Haki Yetu’ like Raila Odinga, but in his quiet manner, he built a strong political base that helped ride the waves to be the third president of Republic of Kenya.
President Daniel Moi, having consolidated his base with the 1979 elections where the Jomo Kenyatta era power men were hounded out of office and his new team of sycophants put in place, felt that he needed room to be himself.
It is instructive that the Kenyatta men who were behind the ‘Change the Constitution’ clamour were all sent to the four winds of the earth. Others, seeing the writing clearly on the wall, beat an about-turn and started singing ‘Nyayo’, Moi’s new clarion call that replaced the ‘Harambee’ shouts Kenyatta was so fond of.
Made up mainly of land barons—some of which was gotten in not so legal ways—the group’s raison d’etre was not as much as to change the constitution as to stop Moi’s ambitions of being Kenya’s Citizen Number One.
Among the influential Mount Kenya politicians and power men, it was Kibaki, Charles Njonjo and GG Kariuki who stood by Moi in these turbulent times. However, in a Machiavellian master stroke, Moi dealt with them one by one, so as not to have people around him who felt some signs of entitlement in his presidency.
Njonjo was accused of plotting to overthrow the president and taken through the humiliation of a commission of inquiry. He was later acquitted. GG was also to face his Waterloo in a well written script that left him clutching at straws.
For Kibaki, there was a systematic scheme headed by the late Elijah Mwangale who he accused of being a ‘political tourist’. When he was finally demoted to the Ministry of Health, Kibaki, in his usual unhurried manner, never said a word and sat tight, bidding for time.
As Matiba and the other hotheads took Moi head on, Kibaki was content overseeing the health of Kenyans and not many knew what was going on in his sharp mind.
It, therefore, came as a shocker that when the country finally did away with the Section 2 (a) of the constitution outlawing multipartyism, Kibaki abruptly resigned and announced the formation of the Democratic Party.
To many in the then juggernaut that was Forum for Restoration of Democracy (Ford), Kibaki was a sellout. They thought he should have done the decent thing (in their thinking) and joined them to forge a united front to remove Moi and Kanu from power.
Kibaki’s hesitation in joining Ford would prove Solominic seeing as it is that Ford was later to split, with Matiba and the maverick Butere MP Martin Shikuku holding on to Ford Asili and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and his bunch of radicals finding home in Ford Kenya.
In the 1992 general election, Kibaki posted a respectable third place after Moi and Matiba. Democratic Party reflected Kibaki’s mannerisms—never antagonising but criticising with well thought out facts. His detractors even claimed that Kibaki was Moi’s Trojan Horse in the opposition.
Heading to the 1997 election, Kibaki had assumed the mien of a president in waiting and although he lost to Moi and Kanu once again, he had made inroads in many part of Central Kenya, Eastern and the scattered seats in other parts of the country.
As an opposition leader, it is only a certified hater who can fault Kibaki. With his wealth of knowledge of economics, Kibaki would time and again take on the government on its economic policies, which he—and the donor community—was mainly propped up by Chinese accounting by Treasury mandarins.
Many a time a Finance minister would be left with egg all over the face as Kibaki tore into the budget they presented before Parliament point by point. Thanks to this, the government’s appetite for borrowing and wanton spending was put in check.
It was with this solid base that when Kibaki finally made it as president in 2002, Kenyans knew that their economy was in safe pair of hands. And as time has proved, they were right.