What You Did Not Know About The ‘Gentlemanly’ Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki

Early Life: Education

The late Mwai Kibaki, formerly baptized as Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki by Italian Missionaries in his youth, was born in 1931 in Thunguri Village.

He was the youngest son of the late Kibaki Gĩthĩnji and Teresia Wanjikũ.

His early education was sponsored by his brother-in-law Paul Muruthi who maintained that it was not right for the young Kibaki to spend his days grazing his father’s sheep and cattle and babysitting his little nephews and nieces for his older sister, instead of going to school to learn.

He attended Gatuyainĩ School for the first two years, where he completed what was then called Sub “A” and sub “B” (the equivalent of standard one and two or first and second grade).

He moved to Karima mission school for three years, then later Mathari School (now Nyeri High School) between 1944 and 1946 for Standard four to six.

After primary school, he proceeded to Mang’u High School where he studied between 1947 and 1950. He passed with a maximum of six points in his “O” level.

What you did not know about Mwai Kibaki during his early stages of school

Knowing Kibaki during his tenure as a president, you would never imagine him doing these kinds of activities during his youthful and school days;

1. He learned carpentry and masonry as students would repair furniture and provide material for maintaining the school’s buildings.
2. He grew his food in school
3. He worked as a conductor on buses operated by the defunct Othaya African Bus Union
4. He considered becoming a soldier in his final year in Mang’u but was turned down.

After his secondary education, Kibaki proceeded to Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he studied economics, History, and Political Science, and graduated best in his class in 1955 with a First-Class Honors Degree.

Through a scholarship, he enrolled at the prestigious London School of Economics for a BSc in public finance and graduated with a distinction.

Family

He was married to Lucy Muthoni from 1961 until she died in 2016.They had four children: Judy Wanjiku, Jimmy Kibaki, David Kagai, and Tony Githinji. They also had several grandchildren.

Political Career

He joined politics in early 1960 after becoming an executive officer of the Kenya African National Union (KANU. Kibaki then helped to draft Kenya’s independence constitution.

In 1963, he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Denholm Constituency (subsequently called Bahati and now known as Makadara) in Nairobi. This marked the start of his long political career.

In the same year, he was appointed the Permanent Secretary for the Treasury, Assistant Minister of Finance, and chairman of the Economic Planning Commission and later on promoted to Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1966.

He was elevated the Vice president in 1978 during Moi’s presidential tenure and kept the Finance portfolio until Moi changed his ministerial portfolio from Finance to Home Affairs in 1982.

On 27 December 2002, Kibaki attained a landslide victory with 62 percent of the votes in the presidential elections and was sworn in as the third President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kenya on 29 December 2002.

In 2007, he declared he was running for the second and last term of office. The election results and aftermath chaos necessitated the creation of a National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008, which distributed power equally between Kibaki as the president and Raila as the prime minister.

Power Handover

Kibaki handed over the Kenyan presidency to his successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, on 9 April 2013.

Death

On 22 April 2022, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced that Mwai Kibaki had died on the night of Thursday 21st April 2022. He was 90 years at the time of his demise.

Read More: Uhuru Kenyatta Declares A National Day Of Mourning