Presidential succession politics in Kenya are the most difficult, risky and perhaps deadly. This is a snapshot of the life of one of Kenya's former vice presidents and how he didn't become.
George Saitoti who happens to have been Kenya's longest serving vice president, having served as president Moi's vice from1989-1997 and also from 199-2002 died in a plane crash in June 2012. Prof Saitoti was known to be a wealthy man. Indeed some ranked him as one of the richest men in the country with city businessmen Jimmy Wanjigi and Jared Kangwana as some of his longest family friends. In Maasai land, he was close to Harun Lempaka who had unsuccessfully tried to unseat William Ntimama from Narok North parliamentary seat, the then DPP Keriako Topiko and Alex Magelo who later became speaker of Nairobi county assembly.
Saitoti jetted back to Nairobi from Mombasa on a Saturday and called Sapalan, who had traveled to Kilgoris asking whether he could accompany them to Ndhiwa for a funds drive at Orwa Ojode’s rural home. Sapalan left Kilgoris early, trying to dash to Nairobi to link up with the minister. He however still arrived late only to hear that Saitoti and his Assistant Minister Ojode had been killed in a helicopter crash
The late Professor had lived on edge as though agents of death kept following him. His paranoia started off with a near-fatal food poisoning that traumatized him to the end of his life. This happened in February 1990 in an Indian restaurant in Nairobi’s Muthaiga area and on the day that the Foreign Affairs minister, Dr Robert Ouko, went missing. When he returned after a few months, Prof Saitoti denied “rumours” that he had been poisoned. He would later say that he did not know those who killed Dr Ouko because he “was unconscious when Ouko was being killed”. This was after President Moi had told a public meeting that the people who killed Dr Ouko were the same ones who “poisoned my vice-president” claiming they wanted to overthrow his government.
The man who was the internal security minister at the time of his death had declared his interest for presidency in 2013 general elections. Away from being the internal security minister, he had assembled what was said to be the most powerful and well-oiled campaign machine in modern Kenya drawing his strategy behind the scenes. This is according to his chief campaign strategist Peter Kagwanja who is the husband to Foreign Affairs CS Ambassador Monicah Juma.
The team was composed of two US technocrats, political scientists said to have been strategic to the Obama campaign team, Jimi Wanjigi who later became the NASA chief financier and Maina Kamanda who was assistant minister and Starehe constituency member of parliament. Also in the team was PNU organizing secretary Peter Ole Sapalan a close confidant and friend of the late Saitoti. Retired president Moi would later also reveal that he was working to boost the late Saitoti's bid for presidency.
Maina Kamanda and Ole Sapalan were tasked with mobilisng political support while Jimi Wanjigi was in charge of mobilizing campaign resources and at the time of Saitoti's death he had managed to mobilize campaign money running into billions. After Saitoti's death, the whereabouts of these billions was later to be the subject of a quiet debate among his relatives and friends in business and political circles, neither Jimi nor Kamanda willing to divulge any information regarding this cash. It is claimed that the campaign billions were wired into a foreign account days after Prof Saitoti’s death
Kamanda would later reveal that Saitoti was organizing a week-long trip to London starting June 18, the same month he died, where he was to open a PNU office and meet Kenyans living in the UK and later to the US for a similar mission. In fact at the time of his death, Maina Kamanda was in Washington to coordinate the trips and was forced to fly back moments after learning of his demise.
The only other people who would have shed light on Saitoti’s missing billions are his wife Margaret and brothers Johnson and Ronald Musengi, a commissioner at the National Police Service Commission. Margaret and Ronald maintained studious silence on the matter. Only Johnson and the professor’s long-time lawyer Fred Ngatia, opened up, but declined to discuss anything touching on Prof Saitoti, citing privacy.
Being president in Kenya is not a walk in the park, regardless of how close one is. Prof Saitoti's years of experience in politics especially at the second most pinnacle, his war chest and privilege as Internal security minister could not be underrated.
1989-1997 and and again from 1999-2002 Read more: https://www.tuko.co.ke/54000-photos-the-top-five-longest-serving-vice-presidents-in-kenyas-history.html#540001989-1997
1989-1997 and and again from 1999-2002 Read more: https://www.tuko.co.ke/54000-photos-the-top-five-longest-serving-vice-presidents-in-kenyas-history.html#54000
1989-1997 and and again from 1999-2002 Read more: https://www.tuko.co.ke/54000-photos-the-top-five-longest-serving-vice-presidents-in-kenyas-history.html#54000
