Queries over whether Jacob Juma was a windbag or whistleblower

On the night that controversial businessman Jacob Juma died, his wife made several calls to know where he was. They were never picked — and he never replied.

He was dead; shot with two bullets inside his armoured but old Mercedes Benz S 350 that had double-glass reinforcement, an indicator of life on the fast lane.

The following morning Juma’s wife, Miriam, took her children to school unaware that officers at Karen Police Station had been alerted about Juma’s murder on Friday at 9.30pm.

It was yet another murder in Karen; and another controversy.

The official explanation so far is that Juma was shot after he was forced off the road by gunmen. Others say he could have been shot elsewhere and that the murder scene could have been stage managed.

Juma’s death adds one more name to high profile murders in Nairobi’s Karen area — the most notable in history being that of Lord Errol in 1941, aged 40; that of white Kenyan philanderer Tonio Trzebinski aged 41 in 2001, and now Juma at 44. There are a few parallels on these murders, if you read on.

Juma was controversial. Those who hated him thought he was a boisterous windbag who was using social media to discredit his business and political rivals.

Those who loved him regarded him as a shrewd businessman, a philanthropist, who had made his wealth early.

Juma was the perfect tenderpreneur and that is why they called him Lord Juma — a man always in a rush.

At only 44, Juma was a multi-millionaire and would wine and dine with the political elite.

Before lady luck smiled on him, Juma was a nobody, son of a poor farmer. His fortunes turned when the young man was introduced to the family of wealthy western Kenya tycoon Chris Okemo (later Minister for Energy and Finance) and to shrewd tenderpreneur Cyrus Jirongo in 1992.

At the time, Mr Jirongo was leading the well-oiled Youth for Kanu (YK’92), an outfit that was used as a conduit to distribute money printed to finance President Moi’s 1992 campaign, triggering levels of inflation unseen in Kenya’s economic history.

ROGUE CONTRACTOR

For that, the Sh500 note was named “Jirongo”. He was also chairman of AFC Leopards, which gave him social mileage in western Kenya.

Besides that, Mr Jirongo was getting many multi-million tenders through his Cyperr Limited and Sololo Outlets, whose board chairman was powerful Mombasa Kanu chairman Sharrif Nassir.

He was also in big money and had been given a tender to develop Hazina Estate in Nairobi for the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) at a total cost of Sh1.2 billion, among other deals.

It was during this period that Mr Juma’s Kenya Polytechnic fees would be paid by both Mr Jirongo and Mr Okemo — as they told mourners at his requiem mass in Nairobi.

While Mr Jirongo had powerful connections, Mr Okemo, though wealthy, had politically goofed by supporting Mr Kenneth Matiba’s Ford Asili in the race for the Nambale parliamentary seat.

Mr Okemo polled 16,773 votes against Kanu’s Philip Masinde’s 17,534.

By this time, Juma had become Mr Jirongo’s errand boy — and as he studied at the Polytechnic he would, thanks to Mr Jirongo’s connections, get a feel of the world of might, power and tenders.

For Mr Jirongo, YK92 had left him immensely wealthy.

Others in the YK92 outfit included now Deputy President William Ruto (YK92 national executive officer) and former Kenya Football Federation Chairman Sam Nyamweya (treasurer).

To get into business, Juma registered Juma Construction and started earning small tenders in 1992 when he was still at the Kenya Polytechnic.

He would later register a limited liability company with Mr Charles Malenya, an engineer, as his co-director and Mr John Walukhe (now ODM Sirisia MP).

Mr Malenya would later leave the company and was replaced by Juma’s wife, Miriam.

In 1995, Juma’s company was registered with the Ministry of Public Works in Category E, which was later upgraded to Category B. But early enough, he emerged as a rogue contractor.

VERY LITIGIOUS

When he was given a tender to tarmac Musikoma-Buyofu Road in Mr Okemo’s Nambale constituency, Parliament was told that “he took away the money” and never finished the project.

Actually in 2004, then Roads Minister Raila Odinga told Parliament that his ministry “terminated the contract due to non-performance... the contract did not perform”.

Juma was litigious and earned millions of shillings by winning various cases he lodged in court demanding damages.

When he was charged by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission for uttering false documents and was remanded in Nairobi’s Industrial Area, he later sued the government for loss of business, special damages and wrongful confinement.

He told the court that he underwent “a lengthy, arduous, agonising and stressful criminal trial attendance for a period of 66 days” and that he suffered considerable expenses until November 2006 when he was acquitted.

For that, Justice Odunga awarded him Sh23 million to cover his legal fees, loss of business and as general damages.

It is a path that his mentor, Mr Jirongo, had followed arduously and would lodge cases with arbitrators to get the best out of unfinished projects.

That is how Mr Jirongo received hundreds of millions for the unfinished Hazina project, although he had been forced by political interests to abandon it.

Juma’s other big financial deal was through his other outfit, Erad Suppliers, where Mr Walukhe and Grace Sarapay Wakhungu, former Vice-President Moody Awori’s sister, are listed as directors.

When he was awarded a contract to supply NCPB with maize in 2004 and the deal was cancelled, Juma rushed to an arbitrator and was awarded Sh564 million for for breach of contract.

The NCPB later contested the decision at the High Court and Juma was awarded Sh267 million.

He later obtained court orders to sell NCPB’s assets to recover the money, yet he did not supply a single grain of maize.

That is how he ended up in a parliamentary committee to answer some questions.

But Juma was not always lucky in court. A land grabbing dispute between his company, Juma Construction, and two businessmen — Ashok Shah and Hiten Kumar — over a six-acre plot in Westlands saw Juma’s ownership discredited.

The High Court ruled in favour of the businessmen and ordered investigations to unearth how Juma came into possession of the purported letters of allotment, LR 18485, measuring 7.389 hectares yet the letter of allotment read 6.0 hectares.

Juma was also in the news after Mining Cabinet secretary Najib Balala cancelled his mining licences after he (Juma) claimed to have discovered nobium, a rare earth mineral worth trillions of shillings, in deposits in Kwale County.

Because of his wide circle of networks, Juma was one of the richest businessmen in western Kenya and his political links run deep.

SIMILAR CASES

A personal friend of Cord leader Raila Odinga (he says he came to know Juma when he was Minister for Roads), Juma had before his death become a whistleblower on the Eurobond saga.

Although he had promised, through his @Kabetes twitter handle, to table evidence on the “theft”, he never got a chance.

Politicians from Cord believe that Juma was killed as a result of this and they have pointed fingers at senior politicians.

Pundits say it is a bit of a stretch to claim that Juma was an anti-corruption crusader.

But to other wealthy Karen barons, his death has evoked emotions similar to those felt in other unresolved murders of controversial residents — who live in a world of their own.

In terms of media coverage, Juma’s death has triggered memories of two other murders on the same Karen stretch. Those of Josslyn Hay, known as Lord Erroll, and of Tonio Trzebinski.

Unlike Juma, Lord Erroll’s body was discovered by milk boys at the intersection of Karen and Ngong roads after a night of heavy rains.

His car, a Buick, had also been pushed into a deep murram trench and the lights were still on by the time the body was discovered.

Lord Erroll was a Nairobi playboy and his murder scandalised colonial Kenya’s privileged expatriate community.

The next widely covered murder in Karen was that of London-trained artist Tonio Trzebinski some 15 years ago.

I had a chance of meeting Trzebinski in his career as an artist — at Nairobi’s Gallery Watatu and at the Museums of Kenya art gallery where he frequented.

Tonio, as he was known, was shot on the night of October 16, 2001, while driving his white Alfa Romeo to the house of his mistress, Natasha Illum-Berg, in Karen.

The shooting came after a bitter divorce that ended Trzebinski’s marriage to German-born wife Ann after he had abandoned her for Ms Illum-Berg, a hunter.

For the past 15 years, the death has never been resolved, although an inquest started early this year.

ASSASSINATION

For Lord Erroll, the murder was never resolved and it led to the movie White Mischief starring Charles Dance and Greta Scacchi.

Karen police had initially said that Trzebinski’s murder was a car-jacking, but this was widely discounted as neither his car nor his expensive watch or a wad of cash in his wallet was stolen.

His mother, Mrs Trzebinski, said that detectives had told her that her son’s murder, far from being an opportunistic crime or even a revenge killing, could have been a professional ‘hit’ ordered by his associates, worried that he knew too much about their criminal activities.

During Juma’s killing, neither his two phones, an expensive Rolex watch, nor money, was stolen, pointing to an assassination or revenge attack.

Observers and politicians say it was the work of a “hit squad” — but most likely by people who were afraid of Juma’s continued revelations of high level corruption.

Whatever it was, it adds to yet another controversial murder in the plains of Karen, where political and social mischief rules.

But was Juma a boisterous windbag or a whistleblower? That is the unanswered question.

John Kamau is the acting editor, Investigations and Special Projects. Email: [email protected]. @johnkamau1