A friend of mine who knows Mwai Kibaki is my favorite president alerted me that Citizen TV's News Gang crew was dismantling his legacy brick by brick the night before his state funeral at Nyayo Stadium.
The News Gang chose that evening to focus the bulk of their analysis on everything that went wrong during Kibaki's presidency.
I was rather amused the next day when Jimmy Kibaki shared an interesting anecdote about his father: Whenever Jimmy watched the news with his father, Kibaki would listen to someone bloviate for a while, and then turn to Jimmy and say, "That fellow spoke for 10 minutes but told us nothing".
That was vintage Kibaki. Just like Winston Churchill, Kibaki had a withering wit he deployed to devastating effect to dismiss his opponents at will. I am not Kibaki, so I cannot address the News Gang, who are all my seniors, with a Kibakism like "bure kabisa!", or "watu wengine wanafaa kutwangwa makofi!" Not at all. Clearly I would not get away with that.
The best I can do is to have my say as reasonably as I can. And what better way to do so than to quote Deputy President William Ruto, who used his speech at Nyayo Stadium to declare, "Mwai Kibaki is the greatest president we have ever had".
I rarely agree with the Deputy President. So when he says something I actually agree with, I sit up and take note.
The fact that he may have breached the rules of political etiquette by saying so in front of the sitting President — his boss and whose father is also a former president — is a story for another day.
Ruto was right. Kibaki will perennially remain at the top of the list of Kenya's greatest presidents for as long as this republic lasts. Perhaps he will not always be number one, or even number two, but he will always remain in the elite ranks.
To my delight, the Deputy President doubled down in Othaya by calling Kibaki the father of modern Kenya. So why is Ruto correct in this assertion?
Many people may think Ruto was referring to the infrastructure that Kibaki built but this may not be the case. After all, that's just hardware.
Kibaki built many roads, bridges, [expanded] airports and schools. But future governments, if they are half as competent, will build even more.
Perhaps the Deputy President was referring to the Kibaki economy, which grew from $14 billion to $60 billion. But that's just Gross Domestic Product. GDP, fundamentally, is just money supply.
Kibakinomics shifted the banking industry's lending focus away from the state towards businesses and individuals, and cut interest rates by half. This stimulated consumption and investment, created jobs, and expanded the GDP.
But future presidents, if they are half as competent and half as decent, may perform better than Kibaki on this score, although it will take an extraordinary individual to pull it off.
I am sure of one thing. The Deputy President was not referring to the 2010 Constitution for branding Kibaki the father of modern Kenya since he campaigned against it bitterly, and still occasionally speaks out against it.
And yet, if Kibaki truly is the father of modern Kenya, it is because of his role in the delivery of the 2010 Constitution, which I fondly call the Kibaki constitution. That document has fundamentally rewired the software of this country. It has changed how we think about this country and how we govern ourselves. Kibaki was determined to get it done before he retired, and he did it.
Therefore, if Kibaki was the greatest president we have ever had, it is not because of Vision 2030; or infrastructure; or the fiber optic cable; or free education; or increasing the money supply; or expanding the East African Community; or even sending the KDF on Operation Linda Nchi, although these were transformative achievements.
If Kibaki was the greatest indeed, it is because he delivered the 2010 constitution. As president, he played the most important role in that process. With the powers available to him under the old constitution, he could have killed it. Instead he delivered it, and ensured he would be the last president under the old constitutional order.
Yes, the 2007 general election was a disaster and the post-poll violence happened on his watch. But the overhaul of the Kenyan state for the first time since independence also happened on his watch.
If Kenya is one of the most stable countries today, it is because of the way the Kibaki constitution disperses power around the country. The Constitution has shifted the Kenyan state away from the imperial British tradition of running a country, to the more republican tradition of the American state: Federalism with Kenyan characteristics.
Since the Constitution has dispersed power, and diversified centers of political gravity away from Nairobi, State House is no longer the only important political prize out there, which means presidential politics is no longer a do or die affair.
Potential warlords now can cool their heels as governors, senators or deputy presidents, as they await their chance to become president.
If we manage to enjoy peace and stability for the next 100 years, it will be for two reasons. First, because of the Kibaki constitution and second, the infrastructure and economic base the Kibaki years built underneath the new constitutional order we now enjoy.
That's why The Baks is the father of modern Kenya.
Patrick is a freelance journalist and writer based in Nairobi. The views expressed here are his own.
