On December 29 2002, the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced the National Rainbow Coalition candidate Mwai Kibaki the winner of the presidential race and declared him the third President of Kenya.
30 December 2002: That 70-year-old affixed to a wheelchair, trying to smile but clearly in some pain. He still managed to take the oath of office then delivered a powerful inauguration speech promising to rid the country of the evils born by leaving KANU, the party whose leader, President Moi although looking over keenly, was getting muddied by mud missiles thrown by the enthused crowd numbering thousands. Narc took power, KANU took off, President Kibaki took over.
January 6 2003: After promising free primary education during its campaigns, the Narc government had to put the plough fast into the ground. President Kibaki, recovering, oversaw the rolling of the free education on this day, forthwith scrapping all the charges levied on pupils. It was a remarkable endavour that saw pupils fill classes to the brim in the next few weeks. The President wrote part of his legacy on this day.
November 23 2005: after a humiliating defeat to the team Orange, spearheaded by Roads Minister Raila Odinga, opposing a proposed constitution during the referendum held on 21 November, President Kibaki, on the Yes camp, the Banana side, responded swinging his sledgehammer that kicked out all the ministers in the Orange camp. He addressed the nation, dismissed the cabinet and after reconstituted bringing on board former members of the opposition in a government of national unity. The sacked later established the Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya which would later split into ODM and ODM-K. Both parties competed against the president in the 2007 elections.
February 28 2008: Any Kenyan above 15 years on this day would be doing herself or himself a great deal of shame if s/he forgets what took place that afternoon at the entrance to Harambee House. President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga were at the centre of it. Bloodshed was the order of the day the last few weeks to this day after disputed presidential elections ignited one of the worst post-election violence the country had witnessed. A worried international community called on former UN boss Kofi Annan to bring together the bitterly disagreeing parties, Kibaki’s PNU and Odinga’s ODM. On this day, the two principals signed an agreement, The National Accord, which lifted up Kenyans’ spirits and the ongoing deadly fighting receded and ultimately stopped. A country slowly descending to lawlessness and anarchy began rising up once again.
March 3 2009: The Mzee had obviously gotten fed up by an assertion gaining weight that he had two wives. To dismiss it he called and addressed a press conference at State House where he insisted he had only one wife. The famously indifferent President could not continue facing the assertions and flanked by a visibly angry First Lady Lucy Kibaki he threatened to take legal action against those who insisted on the other wife.
February 14 2010: Confusion galore. The National Accord at the core. Earlier on this day, PM Odinga had suspended ministers William Ruto (Agriculture) and Prof Sam Ongeri (Basic Education) over corruption allegations but President Kibaki later in the evening revoked that decision. The President’s decision carried the day but the internal wrangles and suspicion in the coalition government hit the top.
August 27 2010: The old man awash with elation standing tall, hoisting the new constitution with his right hand and turning around to show the dignitaries at the high table that included various heads of state from the Eastern African region. The President was overtly happy having achieved one of the key promises he promised Kenyans when he took power in 2002.
November 9 2012: on this day an ageing President Kibaki stamp-proved one of the easily biggest infrastructural projects his government initiated and finished under his watch. The expansion of the heavily jam-infested Thika Highway began in 2009 and the President commissioned the eighth-lane, sh31billion project, this day. Former President Moi ended his 24-year reign by anointing and endorsing his successor who went on to lose, President Kibaki may have ended his by endorsing this project expected to ease traffic movement in the north-western part of Nairobi.
That's President Kibaki. He did many other things. But don't forget these when he chucks office after the next general election.
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