Kibaki named the most inspirational Kenyan

Former president Mwai Kibaki at a past function. FILE 

By George Omondi
 

 

In Summary

• Mr Kibaki, who retired from the country’s top job over a month ago, is the only living Kenyan that the respondents, in the survey conducted last month, found inspirational.
• One in every 50 Kenyans polled cited the former president’s achievements and value system as a source of inspiration, according to a survey by Consumer Insight.

Former president Mwai Kibaki has defied retirement to enter the list of influential people that Kenyans find most inspiring, a new survey indicates.

Mr Kibaki, who retired from the country’s top job over a month ago, is the only living Kenyan that the respondents, in the survey conducted last month, found inspirational.

One in every 50 Kenyans (two per cent) polled cited the former president’s achievements and value system as a source of inspiration, according to the Maisha Study by Consumer Insight.

Mr Kibaki, however, trails US President Barack Obama (6.8 per cent), former South African president Nelson Mandela (4.8 per cent) and businessman Richard Branson (2.4 per cent) in the list of people Kenyans consider as most inspiring.

“Love may not be easy to measure, but respect is a good indicator of its existence. And seeing how the US President came out tops, we can safely say he is everyone’s dream man,” Consumer Insight says in the report.

A total of 1,800 respondents took part in the survey, 33.3 per cent of whom said they got their inspiration from parents.

For Mr Kibaki, the overall rating which loosely translates to eight million Kenyans means he is more popular now than when he ran for his second and last term in office and got 3.6 million votes.

Known for his laidback style of leadership, Mr Kibaki left office after 10 years in power following the March 4 elections, handing the reins of power to Mr Uhuru Kenyatta.

Mr Kibaki assumed power in 2002 on the back of a multi-ethnic coalition that ended more than three decades stranglehold on power by the independence party Kanu.

It was at the start of his second term in 2008, that the country slid into a lethal wave of ethnic violence that claimed the lives of 1300 people, displaced more than 600,000 and destroyed property worth billions of shillings.

That he has been voted the most influential person in Kenya at a time when the International Criminal Court charges are hanging over Kenya’s top leadership means the majority of the citizens do not consider him culpable for the violence.

“The unusual thing is that both genders (male and female respondents) had the same view,” said Maina Ndirangu, the managing director of Consumer Insight.

Mr Kibaki’s score was ahead of many of the respondents’ uncles, who inspire 1.7 per cent of the respondents, pastors (1.6 per cent) and the American innovator Steve Jobs, better known for founding Apple Inc, at 1.5 per cent.

The late Wangari Maathai, a renowned environmentalist, who succumbed to cancer in 2011, remains a source of inspiration to 1.3 per cent of the respondents – the same score as sisters and American innovator Bill Gates.

Prof Maathai is the only Kenyan to have won the Nobel Award, thanks to her work in conserving the environment.

The environmentalist had during the Kanu era mounted a bruising, but successful campaign to prevent the party and its defunct paper Kenya Times from hiving off part of Uhuru Park to build a an office tower.  

When they hosted him early this month, the private sector, through their lobby Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa), said the two terms of Mr Kibaki had seen the greatest improvement in the stock market and internal revenue collection.

The tax collection grew from Sh207 billion in 2001/2 to Sh734 billion last year, financing up to 95 per cent of the national budget.

Mr Kibaki also counts the passing and adoption of the 2010 Constitution among the main achievements of his 10-year administration.

“The new Constitution has increased public participation – the Private sector should therefore actively engage in matters of national building,” Mr Kibaki told Kepsa officials during the May 10 luncheon.