KENYA: Politicians, hangers-on locked out as Bill Gates tours Makueni

 A visit to Makueni County by American business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates was marked by tight security that saw local politicians and even a contingent of policemen who had availed themselves to enhance his protection locked out. 

American business magnate Bill Gates.

His handlers also barred local media from covering the visit, only allow some international journalists to document his movements. 

Earlier, the American billionaire and founder of Microsoft had met Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Junior at his office before engaging another group of community health volunteers at The Makueni Mother & Child Hospital.

The tight security left a bad taste in the mouths of some of the residents and local officials who had hoped to catch a glimpse of the famed Microsoft founder.

The frustrated lot includes Duncan Muindi, a painter based at Kathonzweni Township, who had expected to cash in on the billionaire's visit.

When he got wind of the planned visit by the philanthropist, he painted his mural on a 2 metre by 1 metre canvas. 

“The acrylic on canvas drawing is centered on the countless windows of opportunities Bill Gates has opened all over the world. I started working on the painting on Monday at 9 pm and completed it an hour before he arrived. But I did not get a chance to hand it to him. However, his handlers said it was a fantastic piece of art”.

He said he expects that the county government to buy the painting and install it at Kathonzweni Dispensary, which was part of Mr Gates' tour, to serve as a reminder of the visit by the billionaire.   

Lauds health workers

Mr Gates met lauded community health volunteers in Makueni County for the work they do in enhancing primary healthcare in the county.

“He engaged us through posing a series of questions. For instance, he wanted to know why our unit is comprised of a few community health volunteers against a huge population. We told him that some had fallen out because of lack of allowances. When he wanted to know why I had chosen to stay the challenges I said I felt it was more of a calling than a job. He lauded us for being committed to promoting skilled birth attendance in the region,” Mr Julius Sanya, a community health volunteer at Kathonzweni region, told the Nation after a closed-door meeting with Mr Gates at Kathonzwweni Dispensary.

Makueni is among the counties with a vibrant community health model. To support the community health volunteers, the county government has offered them motorbikes which serve as boda bodas for income and as ambulances to enhance linkages to hospitals.

“We appealed for funding to set up more income generating activities to sustain ourselves,” Mr Sanya added.

Also read: Gates Foundation pledges $1.2 bn to eradicate polio

He also visited a farmer at Muvau region. However, he did not make any commitments.

“We made a serious presentation on our healthcare workers and our budgets. He had a very keen interest in knowing how we cope with the problem of receiving only 50 per cent of what we require from Kenya Medical Supplies Agency and how we plug in the gaps. He also wanted to understand the workings of community health volunteers,” Governor Kilonzo Jnr told reporters after meeting the US businessman.
 
“This was an initial meeting. At the meeting with the Council of Governors and at the meeting with the national government they want to see if they can replicate what is happening here in other counties so that they can help the country as a whole. This is just a learning experience so that they can ask the other counties what they are doing and whether we can have a one size fits all which they can fund because they fund big time programmes. At a later date I am going to have a discussion with Thinkwell and Agra, the partners Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation deals with to see whether we can tap into some of their resources and markets,” Mr Kilonzo Jnr added.

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KENYA: American tycoon Bill Gates to spend Sh850bn on Africa in next four years

17.Nov. 2022

Bill Gates, who is the Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed to spend about Sh850 billion in the next four years to confront hunger, disease, gender inequality and poverty in Africa.

President William Ruto with American tycoon Bill Gates at State House Nairobi on November 16,2022.

Bill, who is still in Kenya, reaffirmed that his foundation is still committed to supporting African institutions that are developing and implementing innovative approaches in health, agriculture and other areas.

The funding announcement comes as Kenya and the whole of Africa grapples with hunger, drought, poverty and malnutrition.

In June and July, for example, three arid and semi-arid lands(ASALs) were experiencing acute malnutrition, which was mainly attributed to low availability of milk, increasing prices of food and lack of water.

Today, 278 million people across Africa suffer from chronic hunger, with more than 37 million people facing acute hunger in the Horn of Africa alone.

Covid-19 has also caused significant setbacks in immunisation and stalled decades of progress made in combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation continues to provide funding to support breakthrough solutions in these areas. 

Also read: 10 questions for Bill Gates on innovation, food security and climate change

“The big global challenges we face are persistent. But we have to remember, so are the people solving them. Our foundation will continue to support solutions in health, agriculture, and other critical areas—and the systems to get them out of the labs and to the people who need them,” said Gates.

In the same spirit, he visited primary healthcare centres, leading medical and agricultural research institutes and smallholder farms to learn about programmes making an impact, their challenges and how he can support them.

His Co-Chair, Melinda French Gates, acknowledged how men and women across the African continent continue to brave challenges in their communities, families and countries. 

“The foundation will continue to invest in the researchers, entrepreneurs, innovators, and health care workers who are working to unlock the tremendous human potential that exists across the continent,” she said.

Her remarks were echoed by Mark Suzman, Gates Foundation CEO, who emphasised on the need to work together to create a resilient continent that will better navigate the acute effects of climate change. 

“Millions of Africans are feeling the acute impacts of geopolitical instability and climate change, so it is critical that we work together. In close collaboration with our African partners, we will invest in local institutions and new collaborations that build the long-term resilience needed to make these crises less frequent and less devastating,” said Suzman.

The foundation has also urged global leaders to invest in people and innovations that can save lives and create opportunities for the world’s most vulnerable.

mchelangat@ke.nationmedia.com 

SOURCE

Daughter of Africa: The story of Kenya’s PR guru, Gina Din

In Daughter of Africa: An Autobiography, Kenya’s corporate communications pioneer Gina Din tells the story of her ascent to the top with verve and honesty. Review by Stephen Williams.

Gina Din, a Kenyan of Asian heritage, is something of a public relations pioneer, a discipline that was hardly known in this East African country a decade or so ago. In Daughter of Africa: An Autobiography she tells her own story with verve and honesty

Although public relations is not a widely appreciated profession (indeed Din prefers to describe her company’s activities as ‘corporate communications’), there is little doubt that PR plays an important role in today’s business world.

Her incredible story begins when, as a young woman – having studied at the London School of Journalism and contributed to The Standard newspaper and other local journals – she took advantage of a family connection to secure a foothold with Barclays, the British bank that was, and still is, a powerhouse in the Kenyan economy.  

It was just at the moment when Barclays was to about to go public, launching an IPO to be quoted on the Nairobi stock exchange.

Beginning at the bottom, she proved her metal by climbing the corporate ladder to eventually sit on Barclays’ Kenyan subsidiary’s management committee.

Her insight proved invaluable as the bank struggled to modernise its image from that of a fusty colonial bank to an institution more relevant to the times and the country it served.

The Barclays post provided a springboard to her determination to launch her own company, Gina Din Corporate Relations (GDCR). It was a bold move, but underpinned by Barclays’ decision to retain her services as an independent consultant she built a portfolio of blue chip clients.

Clients included Old Mutual; the Association of Kenyan Insurers; CIC Insurance; Kenya Commercial Bank; Safaricom; Kenya Red Cross and.Kenya Airways..

Helping to build M-Pesa

Like Barclays Kenya, Safaricom was a Kenyan subsidiary of a major British company, in this case Vodacom, which had been awarded Kenya’s first mobile telephone licence.

Din outlines the tensions that arose in her relationship with Michael Joseph, Safaricom’s chief executive, as she tried to persuade him to focus on the general public as his target market, rather than just the country’s business elite Thanks to the development of pre-paid scratch-card technology, mobile operators could avoid the necessity of credit references in order to establish accounts.

But Safaricom’s greatest technological advance was creating the M-Pesa app that essentially made every mobile phone a banking tool. Din writes: “M-Pesa was a financial revolution, and became a globally recognised success story. Not only did it give the ordinary man and woman access to to money at all times, it also stimulated micro-entrepreneurship . Especially women-led microenterprises.”

She describes her involvement in M-Pesa as being “intensely satisfying”.

Overcoming suffering

Nevertheless, her company experienced a number of troubling episodes. Perhaps her greatest challenge was in dealing with the public relations surrounding the tragic crash of Kenya Airways Flight 507 shortly after takeoff from Doula airport in Cameroon, with the loss of 108 passengers and six crew members.

This terrible crash had a deeply personal aspect as Din was married to a KQ pilot herself. Her husband, Chris Kariuki, was part of the Kenya Airways family and deeply affected by this loss.

However, her professionalism pulled her through as she dealt with the pain and suffering of the passengers’ families and friends drawn from 26 countries across the continent and the world.

In Din’s own words: “The days ahead were a blur. We had to deal with the families, the press, and the staff. The whole country was in mourning. Flags flew at half mast.”

However, the spirit of this book is, generally upbeat. Forty pages of photos illustrate just how extensive Din’s social circle and contacts grew to be; from Kenya’s President Arap Moi to US President Barrack Obama, from the Reverend Jesse Jackson to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Oliver ‘Tuku’ Mutukudzi, and even New African’s managing director, Omar Ben Yedder – her circle of friends and acquaintances is extraordinary.

As is her narrative, describing how her business gained credibility and traction. She tells how she fostered a loyal team around her, how her staff worked cooperatively for a shared goal. This was recognised in 2013 when she was named as one of New African‘s as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans of the year.

SOURCE

KENYA: The secret exhumation of Jomo Kenyatta’s body

Kenya's first President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. He died on August 22, 1978. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

 

By 

JOHN KAMAU

What you need to know:

• The man who lead the exhumation exercise was Kenyatta’s physician, Dr Eric Mwangola, who was also the Director of Medical Services.
• Opande offers no further details on how they opened the crypt that has been under military guard ever since Mzee Kenyatta was laid to rest on the afternoon of August 31, 1978.

A new book by a retired Kenya Army general has revealed the care and honour Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was accorded by the military — even in death.

The military, which has responsibility over the founding President’s mausoleum, on at least one occasion removed Mzee’s body in the dead of night three months after his burial and took it to City Mortuary for professional care before returning it to the Parliament grounds.

The hitherto undisclosed information is now contained in Lt-Gen Daniel Opande’s autobiography, In Pursuit of Peace in Africa, adding another twist to the secrecy involving Kenyatta’s burial.

Mr Opande, who has had a colourful career in the military, says that three months after Mzee Kenyatta’s burial he was called by the Army Commander, Gen Jackson Mulinge, and asked to “heighten security around the mausoleum and to be ready to arrange for a military ambulance to take the casket containing the body of Mzee to the City Mortuary”.

The man who was to lead the exhumation exercise was Kenyatta’s physician, Dr Eric Mwangola, who was also the Director of Medical Services.

PRIVATE MEMORIAL

Dr Mwangola and Dr Njoroge Mungai — Kenyatta’s first cousin — were the two medics that Mzee trusted most.

A source in the Kenyatta family confirmed that the family members knew about the exercise — and that it has happened “twice or thrice” ever since, for “cleaning up”.

The first President died on August 22, 1978 and the anniversary of his death has been marked publicly ever since.

During the commemoration last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta, his son, announced that the family had made a decision to conduct the memorial privately in future.

In his book, the first time the matter has been brought to the public, Mr Opande says there was some sense of urgency in Gen Mulinge’s call.

“I could detect the sombre urgency in his voice as he stressed that the whole operation had to be completed by the following evening. I assured him that I understood his instructions and would comply.”

By then, Mr Opande was the staff officer responsible for ceremonial duties at the Army headquarters.

PLANNING

During the planning of the burial, Lt-Gen Opande had prepared briefings for Gen Mulinge on the programme — perhaps unaware that this had been firmed up more than 10 years earlier by the British High Commission in Nairobi, intelligence and a few politicians led by Vice-President Daniel arap Moi.

Then, it was not clear why Kenyatta’s body was to be exhumed and as Lt-Gen Opande says, Gen Mulinge “did not elaborate the reason for carrying out this delicate task”.

But shortly after Gen Mulinge hung up, Mr Opande says he received another call from Dr Mwangola.

“He introduced himself and asked if I could meet him at the mausoleum on Sunday evening at 9.30pm. I replied that I would be glad to do so. I assured him that I had received instructions from the Army Commander to put myself at his disposal.

"Although I was yet to know what this was all about, I did not ask any more questions, suspecting that the line was not secure,” he writes.

MILITARY ESCORT

Under the cover of darkness and on a lonesome Sunday night, Lt-Gen Opande arrived 30 minutes early with Major Henry Kamiti, who was then the officer commanding the company that was guarding the mausoleum.

The area around the mausoleum was cleared and a security cordon thrown around it.

A military escort had been organised and before Dr Mwangola arrived, Lt-Gen Opande briefed Maj Kamiti that they were supposed to retrieve Kenyatta’s casket and take it to the mortuary.

“Shortly”, writes Lt-Gen Opande, “Dr Mwangola arrived and briefed me on what he wanted my team and me to assist him with”.

“We entered the mausoleum and with the help of a handful of soldiers set out to take out the casket. It was quite heavy and tricky to remove but we managed to bring it out successfully. It was immediately transferred to the waiting military ambulance for the journey to the City Mortuary.”

MISSION SUCCESS

Lt-Gen Opande offers no further details on how they opened the crypt that has been under military guard ever since Mzee Kenyatta was laid to rest on the afternoon of August 31, 1978.

Records from the British Archives have recently revealed the details regarding the burial of Kenyatta, with a burial vault — similar to that of John F. Kennedy — flown to Nairobi before Kenyatta’s death and stored at the Kahawa Army barracks, where it was marked M.T Spares.

It was the lifting of this vault that might explain why Lt-Gen Opande described Kenyatta’s casket as “quite heavy”.

“On arrival at the mortuary,” Lt-Gen Opande recalls, “We transferred the casket inside. The pathologist, Dr Rao, and his assistants who were on standby quickly opened the casket and carefully removed the body and placed it on a large table draped with a clean white sheet. I watched carefully as they cleaned the remains that appeared very well-preserved.”

“Within an hour, the body was placed back into the casket for transportation back to the mausoleum. Later that night, my task accomplished, I called Gen Mulinge and informed him of the success of our mission,” he writes in the book published last week by East African Educational Publishers.

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KENYA: 'It Is Not Over...' Martha Karua Reacts To President-Elect Ruto's Election Win

 Azimio La Umoja coalition Deputy Presidential candidate Martha Karua has expressed intention to challenge President-elect William Ruto’s victory in the just concluded elections.

Taking to social media soon after the official announcement of Ruto’s victory, Karua said: “It is not over till it is over.”

Leaders allied to the Azimio coalition allege that irregularities marred the electoral process.

Moments before IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati announced the final results of the presidential election, Azimio la Umoja Presidential candidate Raila Odinga's chief agent, Saitabao Ole Kanchuri claimed that the systems used by the electoral commission to tally the results of the presidential contest were compromised ahead of the official announcement by the electoral body.

Speaking at the Bomas of Kenya on Monday, Kanchuri cited intelligence reports as the reason that informed their claims, going as far as saying that some IEBC officials actively colluded with the perpetrators of the alleged cyber attack to compromise the presidential polls.

A petition challenging the presidential election results should be filed within seven days from the declaration of the results by IEBC.

According to the Supreme Court, the petition will then be determined 14 days from the day it was filed.

SOURCE

KENYA: Kibaki visited our home, says Ocholla who claims to be ex-president’s son

PICTURE: JACOB OCHOLA MWAI

 

Mr Jacob Ocholla Mwai grew up seeing, knowing and interacting often with Emilio Mwai Kibaki as a neighbour and a close family friend. Mr Kibaki, he said, used to visit their home often. All that while, he says, he did not know that the man who visited them often was his biological father.

A hotelier by profession, Mr Ocholla was born and bred in Nairobi’s Kaloleni estate, precisely flat H14. He, like other children in the neighbourhood, started schooling at Kaloleni Social Hall. He later proceeded to Mariakani Primary School in 1968 for seven years where he sat for the Certificate of Primary Education test and joined the Rift Valley Academy for two years, before moving to Rift Valley Technical.

It took an evening meeting with the frequent visitor, a year after the death of the man whom he now calls his stepfather, for the daunting revelation to be made to him. Then everything changed, a twist in his life that he had never imagined.

Biological father

Mr Ocholla vividly remembers the June 21, 1982 meeting like it happened yesterday. It was the day when Kibaki, the then vice-president, in the presence of his now late mum, revealed to him that the man he had always called “dad” was not his real father. He was told that the man seated before him was his biological father.

As a hotelier, he had always interacted with Kibaki before. Yet, at the VIP sitting at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, he says, he was meeting Mr Kibaki for the first time as his father. The aura between them was punctuated with memories and a past they all wanted to unlearn or forget. Before him, he thought, was a man whose facial features looked like his. But there was also the shocking revelation that the five-hour evening meeting birthed.

“Jacob, I’m your father,” Mr Kibaki told him, as he narrated to the Sunday Nation in an interview earlier this week.

A lot was going through his mind in the minutes after the revelation. He did not know what to make of it and stared blankly into space. He did not know whether to hug him or to cry.

“It was the most shocking thing I had ever heard. The news left me distraught and with so many unanswered questions,” he recalls the moment. “All along I had grown up knowing that I was a Luo, only to realise that I was not.”

The 62-year-old is a father of five children and three grandchildren. Mr Kibaki died early this year aged 90. The 28-year difference between their ages might as well represent the former president’s age at the time Ms Jane Hilda Ocholla gave birth to Mr Ocholla.

Plans to meet his real father

All along, Mr Ocholla says, he knew that Mr Hillary Ocholla, the founding managing director of the Bomas of Kenya, the man he now calls “my adopted father”, was his biological father. His mother had sat him down upon his death in January 1981 and explained that the deceased was not his biological father, and promised to make arrangements for him to meet his real father.

“Even when the time came for me to meet with him (Kibaki), even when he walked into the Amboseli Grill Foyer at Hilton Hotel, I did not know he was [my] father, because he was someone I had known when I was growing up. When orders were placed, my mother broke the news and told me Kibaki was my biological father,” said Mr Ocholla Mwai.

The revelation opened a pandora's box and a past they all wished to forget; a story of a father wanting to be as close as possible to his son, yet honouring the boundaries between him, the friend, and the mother.

Addressed by name

“He (Kibaki) addressed me by name. Remember he was a close associate of my adopted father, both having been students at Makerere. Indeed it is in Uganda that he met my mother when she was visiting my adopted father, Ocholla. At one time, the two were even neighbours at Bahati estate, Nairobi,” he says.

Thereafter, Ocholla claims he met and shared meals with Mr Kibaki countless times at Milimani, Mombasa Beach, and Sirikwa hotels in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Eldoret where he served as a manager. Their meetings were most frequent at Milimani Hotel where the then vice-president was a frequent visitor. Mr Kibaki even spent an hour with his late mother at a city hospital when she was stricken by cancer in 1994, he says.

He did not know that things would change drastically after his ascendancy to the presidency.

Access suddenly cut off

With Mr Kibaki becoming the third president of the republic and his security beefed up in 2002, Mr Ocholla claims access “to his father” was suddenly cut off. Even in death, he was not allowed to get closer to him and he had to ‘pay’ to view his body.

“I was never able to get through his minders when he became President. After his retirement, I made numerous attempts to visit him at his Muthaiga home when he was ailing without success," he narrated.

“One thing that my father insisted on is that I marry a Kikuyu woman,” he said, explaining that all his wives hail from Central Kenya. But that was not the only advise Mr Kibaki gave him, he says. He always asked him to keep their relationship secret to protect his stature in society.

“If my keeping away from his family would give him peace, so be it,” he reasoned.

When Lucy Kibaki, Mr Kibaki’s wife died, he interacted with him at the requiem mass for the first time since his rise to the highest office in the land, he said.

“I walked to him and knelt by his seat and spoke to him,” he said, adding that Mr Kibaki was battling tears, “an indication of a father remorseful of his actions.”

Yet, of all the talks he ever had with his “biological father”, it is the assurance that he would include him in the Will that has pushed him to court demanding to know if the former Head of State bequeathed any part of his wealth to him.

Ready for a DNA test

After 15 years of him trying to reach out to his family, Mr Ocholla is ready to have a DNA test to prove to his “real” family that he is indeed the oldest son of the late president.

“I’ll accept the outcome of the DNA results,” he says. “Many people are curious and are asking why I’m coming out now; it’s because I was honoring my late father’s wish.”

“This is an embarrassing situation to be in but if it reaches a certain point and they say they want a DNA test I am ready for that. I am ready for them to exhume the remains of my dad and test me. I am ready for that,” says Mr Ocholla.

He has filed a case in a Nyeri court claiming he fears he might be left out during the succession process. His attorney says they have unsuccessfully tried serving the Kibakis with the court documents.

“That the citor (Ocholla Mwai) has attempted to reach out to the citees (Kibaki children) multiple times but his efforts have not been successful. The citor is afraid that the citees might proceed with the succession process without involving him and he might be left out of the estate of the deceased despite him being entitled to the share of the estate,” the court documents read in part. According to Mr Ocholla’s affidavit, Kibaki might have already written his will at the time he died. He is seeking to know who should be appointed as the administrator of Kibaki's estate and who should benefit from it.

Mr Ocholla says he takes after President Kibaki. He has attached photos that people who have met him say he looks like the deceased in his court documents.

Struggling with identity

In his “father's” death, he is now a man struggling with identity and belonging. The facial resemblance to the former Head of State, he says, is evidence that he truly is a man with roots in central. Other than Nairobi, Mr Ocholla has always known his mother’s Koru home and his step fathers’ Ugenya home as his other homes where he “is accepted and welcomed as one of their own”. He speaks Dholuo with native fluency and can understand “a little bit of Kikuyu.”

In a bid to establish his identity, he visited Mr Kibaki’s then surviving sister, now deceased, Esther Waitherero’s home. The motive of the visit, he says, was to establish his “roots” for the first time. When he entered her house, Mr Ocholla says, Ms Waitherero stared at him for almost five minutes. When she broke the silence, she told her children and her grandchildren in Kikuyu: “Ũyũ nĩ witũ”, meaning he is one of us.  

Ms Waitherero died mid last month aged 115 years.

dogetta@ke.nationmedia.com; mesimiyu@ke.nationmedia.com

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KENYA: Eric Latiff Biography: Age, Education, Career, Presidential Debate

Latiff is a seasoned broadcaster and journalist with over twenty years of experience as a media personality in radio, TV and digital. He was one of the moderators of the Presidential debate, working alongside Citizen TV’s Yvonne Okwara.

Here is his story as told by WoK.

Age

56-year-old Eric Latiff was born on August 17th, 1965 in Kenya.

Education

Eric joined the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) in South B, Nairobi in 1998. He studied as a Telecommunications Engineer and later graduated.

Career Background

But just like many other journalists, Latiff has a different career background from journalism. He first trained as a Telecommunications Engineer at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) between 1995 and 1998.

He first dipped his toes in media when he was part of the founding team led by Rose and David Kimotho in 2006 to launch K24. He oversaw the station come to life through its modular news concept.

He later joined the Standard Media Group (SMG) as a prime-time news anchor on KTN in April 2006. While at KTN, he spent six years sub-editing news bulletins, presenting, conducting live and recorded interviews, program design and implementation and news content production at the station.

Fast forward to 2019, Latiff joined Spice FM in 2019 when it was launched by the SMG. He was named as one of the hosts of The Situation Room, an uninterrupted morning talk show on Kenyan radio focusing on political commentary and insights about the state of the nation.

Personal Endeavors

Other than his radio and TV career, Latiff also runs two digital agencies. These are Zeze Digital, a data-driven marketing, advertising and training agency and Zeze Tunes, a digital video content aggregator, digital rights manager and distribution firm.

Services at the agencies include Corporate Digital Media Training, Digital Strategy, Digital Solutions Design and Build, Google Adwords, Facebook Advertising, Digital Media Buying and Social Media Management, among others.

SOURCE