Former Internal Security Minister George Saitoti during a National
Council of Churches of Kenya executive committee meeting in Limuru on
June 6, 2012. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Early in 1997, my friend and colleague, Mwangi Chege, asked me
to accompany him to a fund-raiser in his ancestral home in Nyeri County
which was presided over by Vice President George Saitoti.
My
friend had a special invitation from Mathira District Officer which
entitled us to sit at the VIP dais as the rest of journalists, as usual,
scorched in the hot sun. Being one of those rare occasions when a
journalist sits on the opposite side, I found myself engrossed more in
whatever was happening at the high table, and not the fund-raiser
itself.
I noted that while the
VIPs at the high table were sipping water from the bottles at the table,
Saitoti didn’t touch his bottle but would sip from a bottle carried by
his aide and immediately give it back to him.
It
is as if the VP feared that one of the VIPs seated next to him would
throw something into his bottle if it was left to stay at the table.
I also noted that the VP kept throwing scared gazes all over the place as if fearing somebody he didn’t like was present.
That
amazed me because I thought as the country’s No. 2 big man he would be
happy that people from as many walks of life attended his function.
AMAZING
But
the real amazing one was at the burial of Dr Jason Likimani, a resident
of Kajiado, and the first indigenous Kenyan medic having obtained a
diploma in medicine in 1939.
Saitoti,
as the VP and most senior resident of Kajiado County graced the
occasion. As the ceremony proceeded, leading opposition leader and
family friend of the Likimanis, Mr Kenneth Matiba, walked in. All of a
sudden, Saitoti made a signal to his aides and hurriedly left. Years
later I asked Kajiado politician John Keen, who was master of ceremony,
why Saitoti abruptly left. He replied: “Saitoti wasn’t a man!” I never
asked him what he meant by that.
My
next encounter with the mystery of Saitoti was when my boss at the
Nation Media Group, Dr Evans Kidero, asked me to do a story about his
old school, Mangu High, a school that gave us a President, Mwai Kibaki,
and two Vice Presidents, Saitoti and Moody Awori, among other notables.
The
school principal allowed me access to all the school files but I never
saw the name George Saitoti anywhere. True he was at the school but
never used any of the names associated with him – George Saitoti, Kiarie
wa Kinuthia, Kinuthia wa Muthengi, George Musengi – and perhaps any
other name you know.
NYAMWEYA
The
other occasion I remember was at a restaurant in Karen where I bumped
on then Kenya Football Federation chairman Sam Nyamweya. Sam is a good,
interesting man. When you meet him, he always has a story to tell. And
if there is no story to tell, he creates one. And as he narrates the one
he has created, he invents yet another one. It was in the process of
telling me his many stories when the person he was waiting for, Vice
President Saitoti, walked in. On seeing me seated with Sam, the VP made a
quick about-turn and called Sam on his hand-set to change the venue of
their meeting. As he hurriedly left, Sam whispered: “You know that man
can’t sit here now that he has seen me with someone he doesn’t know.”
Another
similar one was at a friend’s office at Posta-Sacco Plaza on University
Way. As I chatted away with my friend, the door flung open and Saitoti
walked in. On seeing me, he stopped in the middle with an offended look.
My friend quickly asked me to relocate to the boardroom. My friend
would later tell me that Saitoti had taken considerable time inquiring
who I was, what had taken me there, and whether I could have been
tape-recording their conversation while seated in the boardroom.
Yet
another occasion was at a high-end hotel in Mombasa in 2006. I had been
assigned to do a story on how hotels at the coast had improved on their
security as a result of terrorist threats. I was walking into the hotel
lobby on a Sunday morning when some mean-looking man pushed me aside.
Before I knew what was happening, Saitoti whizzed by escorted by even
meaner-looking fellows than the one who had pushed me aside.
BULLET-PROOF VEST
It
was a very sunny morning and Saitoti was the only person I saw that day
dressed in a suit and a tie. I would learn that he was always in a suit
because he wouldn’t leave the house without a bullet-proof vest. Later
as I talked to the manager, I mentioned that I had met Saitoti at the
entrance. He looked surprised that Saitoti had spent the night there. He
told me: “I know he comes here but he never makes his booking through
us. We only get to know we have a VIP guest but can’t even tell exactly
which room he occupies. We book him at least three rooms in different
floors and never get to know which one he uses!”
It
is in the same hotel where Saitoti spent the last weekend before his
death while attending a top-level government function with President
Kibaki. Officially, Saitoti was booked at another hotel where the rest
of the Cabinet ministers were staying but he had asked one of his aides
to stay in the room to give the impression that he was staying there. It
is like the minister didn’t feel safe staying with fellow cabinet
ministers.
MYSTERY
Once
I had a conversation with retired politician Kimani wa Nyoike, who was
in college in the United States together with Saitoti in early 1960s. He
told me that Saitoti was a mystery even in their college days. “I was
leader of Kenyan students in our time and we lived us a community. But
Saitoti was always a stranger to us,” Nyoike told me.
The
retired politician also told me that Saitoti never liked anybody who
knew his past near him. “It is like he had something he didn’t want
known about him”, he told me.
In
all his public functions, nobody remembers Saitoti uttering a single
word in any of the 40-something dialects spoken in Kenya. On his death,
word spread that members of the family had to ask top government
officials to take away safes at his home which only the late minister
had access to. Just before his death, he had just constructed a house in
Kiserian, Kajiado County, which only select aides were allowed entry.
Postscript
It
is at the requiem of the late Saitoti in June 2012 when the public saw
for the first time the man who spoke as family friend of the Saitotis.
His name is Jimmy Wanjigi. Yet another riddle wrapped in a mystery
inside an enigma.
kamngotho@yahoo.com
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