Leaders continue to pay tribute to former President Mwai Kibaki whose death was announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday.
Kibaki is mourned as Kenya’s best Chief Executive Officer whose tenure is decorated by revamped economic growth, free education, improved healthcare services, expansion of major highways and promulgation of the new constitution.
But it must be remembered that Kibaki never relied on amending the constitution and creation of irrelevant positions to perform. He took over realms of power from the authoritative Moi regime and made commendable transformations.
He introduced the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in 2003 which was designed to support constituency level and grassroots development projects particularly aimed to combat poverty at the grassroots.
The Late Kibaki’s administration is also responsible for the creation of Kenya’s vision 2030, a long term development plan which aimed at raising the GDP growth to 10% and transforming the country into a middle-income country by 2030.
Free Education tops all Kibaki legacy projects as for the first time in Kenyan history, the State introduced a programme that benefitted over 1 million children who would not have been able to afford school.
As Kibaki was doing these, entire ODM leader Raila Odinga who had backed him in the 2002 polls was complaining that the prime minister Position had not been created and dished to him. There disagreements on positions were also experienced in Kibaki’s rejection of a parliamentary system of governance which led to his fallout with Odinga, and stalled the push for reforms that had propelled Rainbow coalition to power.
The two were for the parliamentary system but Kibaki changed his mind after he was elected in 2002 when he realized that the presidential system is lean, cheap and result oriented.
But Kibaki appointed Odinga as his PM after the disputed 2007 polls where Kibaki stole his win. Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general mediating talks between two leaders which saw them sign a power-sharing deal after months of violence and political unarrest.
Odinga’s appetite for more positions still persisted from the beginning of their grand coalition government where he pushed for a forty member cabinet and 51 assistant ministers.
Their tenure with Kibaki was also marred by constant baby cries with Odinga competing with the then vice president Kalonzo Musyoka over who is more powerful, complaining over latrines, torn carpets for being left in the dark when deciding on mega projects.
Fast forward to the run-up to the 2022 elections, one of Odinga’s cards was to expand the executive to create more positions for cronies and politicians allied to the Kenyatta, Moi and Odinga families through the BBI.
But the sinister plot which was backed by President Uhuru Kenyatta was stopped by the courts which ruled that it was crafted and executed against the law.
Deputy President William Ruto who is campaigning to be the next president of Kenya dismissed BBI and reggae politics as a waste of national resources. Ruto argues that the priority of the next government should be fixing the damaged economy and creating positions to gift cronies.
The DP is reported to have recruited Kibaki’s top brains to draw the economical path his Kenya Kwanza administration will rely on.
And in of President Kibaki, DP Ruto announced that he is suspending his campaigns to four three days to mourn President Kibaki while Odinga announced he will gift corrupt Richard Ngatia with a state job should he ascend to power.
Ngatia who has fake degree certificates had shelved his ambitions to vie for the Nairobi governorship in favour of Polycarp Igathe.
Odinga also announced that he was going for a week-long PR trip in the United States as Kenya mourns Kibaki.
