By ARISTOTLE Omondi
President Kibaki’s immediate former aide-de-camp, Col Geoffrey King’ang’i Muturi, who resigned recently to contest a parliamentary seat in Embu County in the General Election, has scored a significant first.
The ADC has revealed to the world dimensions of Kibaki that have been long assumed unfathomable or nonexistent and in the wake, lifted a lid on a cryptic personality.
In a society where being cryptic – even as an expression of depth or sheer force of character – attracts suspicion and instant myth-making, it is difficult to exploit one’s full potential let alone be a president and at the same time enjoy a break from poisoned conjecture.
And that is precisely why this former adjutant to the Commander-in-Chief has actually done a timely thing in unmasking sides of a man-turned-myth.
Even better, King’ang’i has done it during Kibaki’s presidential term.
The so-called aloofness attributed to Kibaki naturally bolsters the sense of bulletproof mystique that surrounds him. Such perceptions inevitably lead to incorrect attributions of character.
But had such revelations by King’ang’i come at the sunset of Kibaki’s presidency – much of the ignorant talk about who Kibaki is or what he is not may well have changed completely. King’ang’i has not only unveiled a solitary Head of State and the loneliness of command, but also thrown a nugget or two on what Kibaki’s legacy will look like long after his term ends.
More fundamentally, King’ang’i has humanised Kibaki and set off a myriad guessing games about what else Kibaki is that is concealed from casual onlookers.
For starters, it is a sheer flight of fancy to as much as imagine Kibaki humming ‘Ndakaiire Jehovah’ (I cried to Jehovah), a very popular Catholic worship song my one time roommate in my undergraduate days was hugely fond of.
But King’ang’i confirms that President Emilio Mwai Kibaki actually does! In comparison though, it is quite easy to visualise Prime Minister Raila Odinga not just humming or singing, but happily belting out, Jaguar’s Kigeugeu in his bathtub.
Such is the yawning gap in public perception on Kibaki and Raila.
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