Lucy Kibaki put her family above all else

Mama Lucy Kibaki. That is how the fallen former First Lady was referred to. Her name was not just the usual reference to family relationships between the holder of the title and the father — or, in her case, husband — but a silent celebration of her motherhood.

The word ‘Mama’ qualified everything maternal about Lucy, pointing, through its positioning at the start of the name, that this was not just any other woman but the doyenne of a nuclear family, as well as an empress to a society and, by extension, a nation.

Lucy, if we may refer to her by her baptismal name, was a very conservative woman, according to those who interacted with the Kibaki family.

“She cared more about her children than anything else,” said a journalist who both formally and informally interacted with the Kibakis, adding that “she would do anything for them”.

That overbearing influence on the direction of the family established her as a powerful, unapologetic and unwavering matriarch, made even more powerful by her professional background as a teacher.

For many people, one of the most enduring illustrations of the lengths Lucy would go to protect her family is a picture of her standing behind her husband at State House, Nairobi, in 2009.

The picture, by Daily Nation photographer Joan Pereruan, shows an agitated Lucy standing next to her husband, President Mwai Kibaki, who is reading a statement to the nation to announce that he has one wife: Lucy.

Lucy peers menacingly into the forest of cameras and microphones. You can almost feel the tension, virtually live through the fury burning inside her.

Here was Lucy escorting her husband to the lectern and standing guard as he made a very important announcement regarding the Kibaki household.

Lucy is said to have been so protective of her family’s privacy that she discouraged her children from pursuing political careers. She was never too close to outsiders and, in a way, that meant her husband also maintained a very thin circle of friends.

“Other than his golfing interests, he has lived a generally private, if not lonely, life,” an acquaintance said yesterday.

In an emotional address to Nation staff in May 2005, Lucy defined her family as “humble” and “decent”. She had stormed Nation Centre at night over what she claimed was misreporting of the Kibaki family, and said she would do anything to defend its dignity.

“You have been writing that I should behave like this or that First Lady,” she complained. “Why should I? I am Lucy Kibaki and I will never change.”

Ms Ida Odinga, the wife of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, told The Content House in 2013 that, even though she did not have a lot of interactions with Lucy during the time of the coalition government, she viewed her “as a very strong and nice woman”.

Mrs Odinga said: “It just happened that we didn’t interact a lot. But she is somebody I admire for her strength because being where she is is not easy. I like her and I have no problem with her.”

In many ways, the Kibaki family revolved around the steely nature of the matriarch. Her family was unavailable for comment yesterday, only issuing a statement from London, where she died, and promising to give the nation more information in due course.