When Jomo Kenyatta told off his kin in a face-off with minister

Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta publicly stated that he’d no qualms if his own brother Muhoho Kenyatta was investigated and action taken on him if found guilty in the on-going investigations on illegal imports of dirty sugar. He said: “People are out there bundling my brother (name)… I have no problem. If he is guilty, let him be dealt with. What’s the problem?”

By insisting that everybody, including his own brother, was equal before the law, the President was in element as a chip off the old block. On at least four occasions reported below, President Kenyatta’s father, First President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, declined to bend the rules to accommodate his kin.

In the first incident, the President refused to allow his own and only brother to import more silk material than the quota allowed by the government.

NO TO A BOTHER

Below I reproduce a personal letter written to me by a Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr James Osogo, who was involved in the incident. The latter, now 85, is gracefully living his retirement days at Port Victoria, Busia county.

“1 September, 1999

Dear Mr. Ngotho,

RE: KENYATTA – HIS STYLE AND PRINCIPLES

For your future writings may I add my experience with the old man (President Jomo Kenyatta). When I served Kenyans as Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mzee’s brother James Muigai wanted to import silk material from Far East to the Kenyan market. The President rang me from State House and asked me whether I knew his brother James.

I answered in the affirmative. He asked me to give Mr Muigai an audience at my office, which I subsequently did. In my office, Mr Muigai produced several import indents applying to import silk material worth Sh16 million.

I went through the indents and found only three worth Sh3 million, which could be allowed. At the time Kenya was growing silkworms at Thika with a foreign country’s aid for the purpose of manufacturing silk material for the Asian community.

The government had decided that the manufacturing company would be the only one to import few metres of the material while the company was under construction. The factory could also import silk yarn on completion of the construction to supplement the silk harvested from silkworms.

Back to Mr Muigai’s indents, I informed him that I could not allow the remaining applications because that would be killing the silk manufacturing factory in Thika, in the President’s constituency.

ACCEPT APPLICATIONS

Mr Muigai emphatically told me that the President had directed me to accept the applications, but I politely told him that I was told by the President to consider the request.

Mr Muigai lost his temper, collected the indents and left for State House. I immediately followed him. At the time, Ministers flying the national flag were not stopped at the State House gate.

I went into the Comptrollers’s office and informed him to inform the President that I wanted to see him.

The President allowed me into his office straight away, where I found Mr Muigai updating him of his visit to my office. Mzee asked me what was the problem with Mr Muigai’s request.

I told him that the request was an application to import and that after looking at it only three of the sixteen applications made by his brother could be allowed.

Mzee quietly listened to me as I took him through the facts and figures that made me arrive at the conclusion. When I finished my explanation, he looked at his brother in the eye and asked him: “Have you heard all the Minister has said?” Mr Muigai replied in affirmative, to which Mzee said: “If you have heard, then you must abide by his decision. He is the one I have entrusted with the job to handle such matters!”

NIECE AND THE GREEK

The next incident involved the President’s favourite niece Ms Beth Wambui, now Nominated legislator Beth Mugo. She happened to be entangled in a business rivalry with a Greek investor over some ruby minefield in Taita-Taveta county.

When they couldn’t agree, the Greek sought legal redress by filing a suit through the law firm of Waruhiu and Muite Advocates. Lawyer Paul Muite handled the matter.

The later told me that one morning he got to his office to receive a message that he call some number.

When he did, the receiver told him to hold the line for the President. “At first I thought It must be an April Fools’s day plank”, recalled Mr Muite. “But sure enough, a booming voice came on the line which I right away recognised to be the President’s voice.”

Mr Muite told me the head of state was very polite and asked him whether he knew “a girl by name Beth Wambui.” Then he asked to be briefed about the matter in court.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION

“I took him through the details of the case and he listened without interruption”, Mr Muite recalled. “Actually at one time I thought he had disconnected only for him to assure me he was listening to every word I said.”

Once the lawyer was done, the President asked what was the best way forward. “First I told him I would have preferred the matter was settled through a dispute resolution mechanism outside the court”, recalled Muite. But since the matter had reached the courts, the best thing was to let the matter go to its logical conclusion.

Muite told the President her niece had a good case and the verdict could be in her favour. But just in case she lost it, there was still a chance she could have it her way on appeal.

However, Muite strongly advised against any interference by the State as the matter had already got attention of the international media and meddling by the state would be a public relations disaster for Kenya.

Once again the President quietly listened then said: “Bwana Wakili, the shoe fits well. We go by what you have said.” To use the court jargon, it is like the President had said: “I stand guided!”

SELL GOVERNMENT BEANS

In yet another incident, a top manager of a commercial bank where the President had an account together with a very close relative of the President had hatched a scheme to purchase beans from the government strategic reserves and sell the consignment to Argentina for a kill. Using the name of the President’s kin, the bank manager managed to intimidate government bureaucrats and was just about to export the beans when the matter came to attention of then head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Geoffrey Kareithi.

He correctly figured that exporting beans from the government strategic reserves would soon land the government in a crisis as those were the beans for use by the uniformed forces and public institutions of learning.

But knowing the names behind the scheme, Mr Kareithi sought direct intervention of the President. To his surprise, the President wasn’t aware of the scheme. Mr Kareithi told me the President was so angry and right away telephoned the rogue banker for a dressing down.

Then he turned to the latter and said: “You are my eyes in the government. Any time you see some mischief like that one, just report it to me no matter who is involved be it my spouse or my child!”

VAST TRACKS OF LAND

Much has also been said and written about vast tracks of land owned by the Kenyatta family.

Mr Kareithi what was the old man’s view on owning so much land by an individual. He replied with a personal story on how he acquired his own land on Kenyatta Road, off Thika Superhighway.

When he spotted the land then owned by a white settler, he told the President he intended to register a land-buying company to purchase the land and sub-divide it among shareholders.

To which the President asked: “If the white settler owns all the land by himself (it run into hundreds of acres) why can’t you also own it alone?” The President went on: “That’s where we Africans get it wrong. We want to sub-divide every available piece of land to get every piece of land into small, tiny plots which are of no economic use. In contrast, the whites set aside residential areas but retain vast tracks of land for gainful use on economics of scale.”

To emphasise his point, the President asked how many people were employed by the white man to work in the farm. Told about a thousand people, the President said: “Isn’t it foolish then to mutilate the land into small plots and render a thousand people jobless!”

VAST EMPIRE

Ironically, old Jomo never by himself developed any of the vast lands he owned. Family sources say he instead had instructed his younger wife, Mama Ngina, to develop and or sell the land to invest in other ventures once her three young children – Uhuru, Muhoho, and Nyokabi, came of age.

She actually did so beginning in the early 1990s when Kenyatta family ventured into big league business acquisitions to build a vast empire whose flagship is the giant milk processor, Brookside Dairies.

The family has also heavily invested in top-end hotels, schools and owns a commercial bank. More recently they had ventured into media by acquiring the MediaMax Group, whose stable includes K-24 television, a couple of FM radio stations and the People Daily newspaper.

They have since sold out their majority stake in the media house to the Deputy President William Ruto, the guy reputed to be sitting on a mountain of disposable income.

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