Kibaki’s failing health put on hold all pledges he had made

The first time Kenyans heard of Kibaki’s ill health was an announcement, in late January 2003, that the President had been admitted to Nairobi Hospital to have a blood clot – the after-effect of his car accident – removed from his leg.

Kibaki would continue to carry out his official functions from hospital, his personal doctor, Dan Gikonyo, assured the public, as long as he did not get overstressed.

He suffered from high blood pressure and had been advised, amongst other things, not to wave his arms around. The statement failed to reassure.

‘I don’t want to cause alarm but I am worried about our president’s health,’ a perceptive Kenyan blogger wrote in February, noting that Kibaki had not addressed the nation for a month, remaining silent even when a minister was killed in an air crash. ‘I have this nagging feeling that State House is not telling all.’

Had Kibaki been felled by a stroke? When John Githongo went to visit the Old Man in hospital, he was shocked. Whatever criticisms had been voiced of Kibaki in the past, everyone had agreed on his extraordinary intellectual acuity.

Once Kibaki checked out of hospital, John started briefing him both orally and in writing, so concerned had he become over his boss’s ability to retain information. Journalists who covered NARC’s 2002 election campaign say there have been two Kibakis: the early Kibaki, engaged, focused, acute; and the later Kibaki, vague, distracted, struggling to maintain a coherent chain of thought.

The British high commissioner, Edward Clay, immediately noticed a change. Just as Britain, traditionally a major donor, was hoping to re-engage with Kenya, it became impossible to win an audience with the President. Development minister Clare Short left the country without seeing the head of state.

And Clay noticed that Kibaki struggled during his regular meetings with the diplomatic corps. ‘He had a genuine problem carrying on a train of thought from one meeting to another, particularly if there wasn’t a witness. Some days were better than others. I didn’t think he was himself again until early 2004.’

It was noticeable that when Kibaki was delivering a speech he no longer extemporised or made eye contact with his public, keeping his eyes glued to the autocue.

At an investors’ meeting I attended in London two and a half years after his collapse, by which time many were remarking on the extent of his recovery, Kibaki still gave the impression – characteristic of stroke victims – of being a little tipsy.

His delivery was slightly slurred, his enunciation ponderous, and when answering questions he meandered and contradicted himself. The entire audience seemed to be willing him on, praying he would make it through to the end without some monstrous faux pas.

Confronted by a calamity no one had anticipated so early on, Kibaki’s closest aides reeled and then rallied. If the Old Man was temporarily incapacitated, then they would have to run the country until he regained his faculties, just as the Kremlin’s stalwarts had done whenever their geriatric Soviet leaders turned senile.

The kernel of this group consisted of Chris Murungaru, the burly former pharmacist appointed minister for Internal Security; David Mwiraria, Finance minister and Kibaki’s longtime confidant; Kiraitu Murungi, Justice minister; State House comptroller Matere Keriri; and personal assistant Alfred Getonga.

The one factor all these players had in common was their ethnicity – they were all either Kikuyu, like Kibaki, or members of the closely related Embu and Meru tribes, who the Kikuyu regard as cousins. In naming his Cabinet, Kibaki had presented himself as a leader of national unity, careful to distribute all but the key ministries across the ethnic spectrum.

The popular press, noticing the trend, soon coined a phrase for this circle, the real power behind the throne. ‘The Mount Kenya Mafia’, it called them, a reference to the mountain that dominates Central Province. The phrase was to prove more apposite than anyone could have guessed at the time.