Life and times of Maina Wanjigi, a man with great reach, influence

Former Cabinet Minister Maina Wanjigi, who died on Friday, was an influential public servant in post-independent Kenya because of the pivotal role he played in the resettlement of natives on farms that previously belonged to colonial white settlers.

Thousands of local people, mostly from Kiambu, were settled in the Central and North Rift Valley regions, while others found themselves in far-flung places like Lamu and other parts of the coastal region, courtesy of Wanjigi’s position as the first post-independence Director of Settlements.

Powerful and well-connected individuals were also allocated prime property around Nairobi in areas like Dagoreti, Westlands, Ruiru and parts of the present-day Eastlands areas among them Donholm, Ruai and Utawala.

Most of those properties were later subdivided and sold to developers to create current residential estates in Eastlands and other places in the city.

During the independence negotiations at Lancaster, it was agreed that the British government would loan Kenya 26 million sterling pounds for resettlement of local people and that was the money Wanjigi controlled at the time.

He used the money to pay white settlers who wanted to voluntarily leave the country and many of them, especially those who were in the North Rift, left for South Africa where they resettled.

His family says Wanjigi studied at Kagumo in Nyeri and Alliance Schools before going to Makerere University in Uganda, and thereafter heading to the US where he earned his Master’s degree in economics before Kenya gained independence.

Upon returning to the country, Wanjigi worked as an assistant agricultural extension officer in Nyeri District, in the colonial administration, and that is probably how he developed his profile that made him director of settlements.

The resettlement exercise, however, created a lot of discontent and controversy, especially from some Mau Mau freedom fighters who claimed they were never given land despite the role they played in the struggle for independence.

But satisfied that he had done a good job, President Jomo Kenyatta appointed him the Chief Executive of the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (ICDC) in 1968, ostensibly to now empower the commercial capacity of local communities.

He was expected to ensure that as many local people as possible engaged in trade, an area that at the time was largely controlled by Asian dukawallas (shop owners), while the manufacturing sector was still under the ownership of white businessmen.

Wanjigi then established the Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC) and Kenya Industrial Estates (KIE) that successfully drove and supported local businesses. The two agencies collapsed in the early 1980s because of mismanagement and corruption.

He later joined politics in 1969, when he vied for the Kamukunji parliamentary seat and won after the assassination of the then area MP the late Tom Mboya on the streets of Nairobi.

President Kenyatta appointed him an Assistant Minister for Agriculture and that made him one of the most influential politicians who never served in a full ministerial capacity before the first president's death in 1978.

Gikomba market

It was in his first stint as Kamukunji MP that he helped small traders start the Gikomba market and the Shauri Moyo Jua Kali yards, which greatly empowered the capacity of local people in the constituency and surrounding areas.

By the time he joined politics, many children in the low-income constituency could not access basic schooling and in a speech he made in Parliament in June 1973, Wanjigi advocated free primary school education for all children in the country.

He said: “Unless you have a good education to which every child has access and that can be harnessed to (enable them to) reach their full potential, you cannot build a sound population and a sound nation.

“It is about time somebody got the message that we want free primary education. Let every child in this country be entitled to at least eight years of free primary education.”

His political career continued to blossom after President Moi took over in August 1978, largely because of the support he had received from the MP during the succession campaign that saw many senior politicians purged from government.

He was appointed chairman of the national carrier Kenya Airways Board in 1979, a position that Wanjigi and later Isaac Omoro Okero used to turn the airline into a profitable venture when they were at the helm.

He was instrumental in facilitating the partnership between Kenya Airways and Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM), which lasted for many decades although it later turned recently that the deal was largely skewed against the local airline.

The MP was also appointed to plum ministerial dockets, that included ministries of Public Works and Housing, Cooperatives Development, Tourism and Wildlife and later Agriculture.

He later fell out with Moi when another purge was executed by the government after opposition leaders led by Kenneth Matiba, Martin Shikuku, Masinde Muliro and Oginga Odinga began agitating for multi-party democracy.

In May 1990, shortly before the Saba Saba multi-party protests, whose execution was mounted from Kamukunji grounds in his constituency, the government cracked down on his constituents when he was out of the country.

The minister was on a tour of duty in Europe when Nairobi City Council bulldozers descended on the expansive Muoroto slums in his constituency and demolished everything in sight, making over 2,000 residents homeless.

Wanjigi believed the exercise had the approval of the government, making it known that they were directly targeting him to destroy his political career and also protested loudly upon his return.

An enraged Wanjigi told journalists at the time that the Muoroto demolition reminded him of Operation Anvil during the colonial era. He issued a press statement condemning the raid as cruel and inhumane, and described those who had featured in it as stooges and neo-colonialists.

After politics, the former MP took a low profile, focusing on developing and managing his large business empire that included the Kwacha Group of Companies in Nairobi that he jointly owns with other members of his family.

In 2022, a magistrate in Nairobi ordered directors the Kwacha Group of Companies, a holding firm of businesses partly owned by his son then-presidential hopeful Jimi Wanjigi, to appear in court over nonpayment of a Sh28 million debt.

The court said the money was owed to a contractor, Pindoria Holdings Ltd, that had renovated Kwacha Group’s offices in 2012. 

The directors were listed as James Maina Wanjigi and Mary Wanjigi who were expected to attend Milimani commercial court on May 12, 2022, for a hearing of a request filed by the contractor seeking to lift veil of Kwacha Group of Companies. 

Untold suffering

In 2018, the senior Wanjigi sued the government, claiming that his family had been subjected to untold suffering and harassment solely because his son Jimi was closely associated the then-Nasa presidential candidate Raila Odinga.

The protest followed claims by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee government that Jimi was keeping illegal firearms at his house in Muthaiga and the Westlands office, claims that turned out to be false.

Following his death, the family released a statement, saying the former Kamukunji MP died while receiving treatment at Nairobi Hospital.

“We truly shall truly miss his respected presence in our lives,” said Jimi, adding that he will be mourned as a family patriarch who “selflessly served his family, nation and the world”.