In his sunset days, President Mwai Kibaki knew that the bell would soon toll for him and made peace with himself, family and everyone around him.
His eldest son, Jimmy Kibaki, recalls how the death in 2016 of their mother, Lucy Kibaki, became a major turning point for the family.
The former president started falling ill immediately after her burial, which made him realise that he would sooner than later be re-united with his sweetheart. And so, for the past six years, Mzee Kibaki always had his luggage packed, ready for the exit.
“Remember he had to be flown to South Africa for specialised treatment after our mum passed on. The experience and the ordeal changed everything. It was never going to be the same again,” Jimmy recalled in an interview on Thursday.
Addressing the family before he was taken to the Nairobi Hospital ICU on Wednesday last week, after which he breathed his last on Friday, Kibaki had one wish for his children; “stay together, take care of my grandchildren”.
If his last wish is honoured, he reminded the family, they shall have made the former First Lady and him proud and happy in the after life.
The presence of his grandchildren had become a commonplace at State House in his second and final term in office. In his retirement, they always surrounded him at his Muthaiga home whenever schools were in recess. His children say he enjoyed a special bond with the young ones. His oldest grandchild is 26.
Jimmy says that his father, “being a meticulous man,” ensured he put his house in order before his death. He promises the country that there will be no family feuds over property in his father’s absence, like has been the case among prominent families when the patriarch or matriarch dies.
“We have no reason to start fighting, we’ve been brought up well. As his children, we do not view his wealth as ours. No. For whatever wealth he has left, we only see ourselves as trustees for the next generation. Our duty is to increase what is there not to fight over it.”
But even on his deathbed, Jimmy says, his father did his best to ease the family’s worries despite the visible pain in his eyes. He’d prefer talking about other things.
“My father never wanted us to worry about him. Instead, he was more concerned about us, even in his sickness,” he said.
He recalled how the military took over on being informed that their father, a former Commander in Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), had passed on.
“In death, we realised our dad belonged to Kenya, to the government and also to the military, not just to us the family. We were made to sign-off documents handing the body over to the military. Even pathologists who prepared his body were from the military. Those from Lee funeral home were reduced to bystanders,” he said.
In the midst of the mourning and coming to terms with his father’s loss, he still sees hope for Kenya in the military and other efficiently run institutions.
“If you look at how they do their business, they are very professional and courteous. The military is evidence that institutions can work,” he said with deep reflection.
As a father, Jimmy says Kibaki did not believe in spoon-feeding anybody, including his own children.
You had to roll up your sleeves, work and stand on your own.
“When you finished the university, it was up to you to decide what to do. If you wanted to go into business, he’d start you off. He’d then support you for the first six months to one year. After that, you’d be on your own. And if you needed help with getting employment, he’d also do it once and if you messed it up, it would be none of his business.”
“He was of the mind that there is only so much you can do for your children. If you do everything for them, when will they ever grow up,” he held.
He said his father took them for holidays whenever schools closed.
“His preferred destination was Mombasa. He made time for his family despite the demanding schedule of a public figure.”
The children attended the best schools, best universities around the globe, in the US and the UK, and so he expected none of them to have an excuse for not excelling in life.
“He never administered any corporal punishment on us when we went astray, but he had his own way of putting his point across that he was not happy with you. And that way, you’d actually feel terrible that mzee is not happy with you. You’d do your best to redeem yourself.”
Mama Lucy Kibaki, the former First Lady, was the ultimate family disciplinarian.
“I can assure you she was quite effective at it,” he stressed.
The former president was a staunch Catholic, believing it is the church that gave him a chance in life.
When the Consolata Missionaries wanted pupils to enrol in school, his father released him to go on an account that he was not very useful on the farm.
While President Kibaki was not a demanding type of a parent, he couldn’t understand why someone would fail in class.
“He expected us to excel in school and respect people. When we didn’t excel like some of us were a bit challenged, he couldn’t understand what the problem was since he was an academic giant. He couldn’t just get why someone would get below grade B in a subject. He was right,” Jimmy says.
In his style of not imposing his views on children, Jimmy says he left it to them to decide whether to venture into active politics or not.
“He neither encouraged nor discouraged us from joining politics. Remember even for him, he never joined politics for the sake of it, like is the case among many. He joined politics in order to be appointed minister and later president since he believed he had something to offer and it could only be possible in that space,” he says.
But the former Head of State asked him to ‘engage closely’ with Othaya residents, the region he represented in Parliament for half a century, perhaps the closest he came to urging Jimmy to get into politics, he recalls.
On whether he will be charged with being the political leader of the family, in the same fashion Baringo Senator Gideon Moi was crowned at the burial of his father Daniel Moi, and handed Mzee’s symbolic rungu (baton), the younger Kibaki say the family will not follow that script.
“We’re a bit private and conduct our affairs differently. Of course the family already sees me as one (political leader) but trust me, an announcement will be made when such a decision is arrived at,” he told the Saturday Nation.
On Kibaki the head of government, he says his father had the patience of a mustard seed.
“He never showed his frustrations even when running a government with people whose vision may not have been in tandem with his. You remember the squabbling from day one of his presidency to the end, yet he had a country to lead and an economy to revive. He even battled an accident and had to overcome stroke to lead,” he says.
Jimmy admires his father for many things and says the late president maximised on every opportunity he came across.
“Obviously, he was of superior intelligence but he also made the most out of opportunities life gave him. Success for Mzee meant that you knew what you were doing. He did tremendous amount of research and reading,” he recalls.
Out of oppression
As president, Jimmy says his father listened keenly to experts in areas which he was not an authority.
“He would tell Muthaura (Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura), let’s listen to doctors on this and that health policy for they know it better. But before hosting them, he would go ahead and read about the subject so that he is not just a passive listener.”
And like is the case for every man, Kibaki too had his regrets.
“He felt that as he was moving at a very high speed to transform the country, a country that was just being liberated from many challenges, he felt he left a lot of people behind. He assumed the task would have been obvious for a people who were just coming out of oppression but that was not the case. He, in the end, felt he should have sought more consensus on this mission, that way, his presidency would have been better,” Jimmy says.
Ultimately, he says, his father was more appreciated for what he did for the country in his retirement than when he was the country’s chief executive. BY DAILY NATION