Day I crossed Mama Lucy Kibaki's path

Last week, I promised you more on former First Lady Lucy Kibaki and how our paths crossed. First, let me condole with former President Kibaki and his children and family as they grief over the passing on of a loving wife and mother.

I promise to keep up to the decency of our traditions by not talking ill of the departed.

There is however, a bit of a problem because of the social status and the public space Mama Lucy occupied.

Before Mr Kibaki became President in the tail-end of 2002, she wasn't in the public domain but once in a while you would hear soapy stories on the grapevine casting an image of a person who either needed anger management lessons or one with a bigger problem that needed urgent attention. Hopefully, an insider will one day write a book on The Kibaki's and sift the truths from the myths and rumours.

Covering the story of Mr Kibaki in the first and second term was a nightmare to many of us in the newsroom, beginning with the stories of how the First Lady had ordered that drinking glasses be crashed the day former President Moi was visiting State House for the first time since he left office. The story we got, but which we couldn't publish because of the code of secrecy at State House, was that she told the staff since Mr Moi was a teetotaler, she wanted to make sure that he does not, by any chance, use any of those glasses that chaps at Ikulu had been drinking liquor from. Secondly, she ordered the bar, which I am now told is open, shut down.

There were also stories that the likes of former State House comptroller Materi Keriri can attest to on what befell those she felt were close to Mary Wambui, who somehow informally featured in the Kibaki family tree until the day he disowned her standing next to Lucy on live TV. Well, some of the victims of these perception got instant justice from Lucy.

There were also not very flattering stories about how once in a while she put her foot down in public glare against Mr Kibaki's wish and she would obviously have her way, either because he wanted to minimise attention, or to reduce the chances of more drama.

Well, there were many stories, but this then brings us to the complaint she lodged against veteran journalist Macharia Gaitho and myself at the Media Council of Kenya. Her problem with us as I hinted before, was that we didn't respect her, her hubby and her family in general as well as the Presidency.

She, in particular, was unhappy with three headlines I had written including that of the paper she held the day she stormed Nation Centre in May 2005: First Lady Turns Heat on Police; Shame of First Lady; and Lucy on the Loose. She also appeared more incensed with my column that week and she had this to say which I now leave for you to judge:

Mr Tanui's disregard for the Kibaki Presidency is notorious and well documented. On Friday April 29, 2005, Mr Tanui devoted an entire commentary column to an oblique attack on the First Lady in which he compared her to the late Romanian dictator Nicolae Caesescu's demented wife, also deceased.

There was absolutely no call for this odious comparison, no grounds, it was completely unwarranted and gratuitous. Mr. Tanui's piece was all the more offensive for being the work of a commentary and analysis non-professional. He spent an entire paragraph demonstrating what a quack Elena Caesescu was when she 'masqueraded as a world-class renowned chemist and scientist. But Tanui himself did not once spell the name Caesescu accurately throughout his unfocused harangue of the Kibakis and he seemed to think, throughout the article, that the names Nicolae and Nicole are interchangeable.

As the saying goes, a little knowledge is dangerous. And not only that; Tanui failed to make the connection he was implying throughout his article between the Kibakis and the Caesescus, except to suggest that the Caesescu style was a road that President Kibaki must never take.

Mr Tanui engaged in much insinuation in that abusive piece on Mrs. Kibaki, but no hard and fast accusation, much less facts. Tanui's article was an exercise in political hysteria.

The long and short of it is that she only turned up for the first hearing and left in a huff because the two senior editors Nation and Standard sent, stood their ground that their papers were objective and stood for fair reporting. We never heard from her again and as a journalist, I have this nagging feeling that this matter was left unresolved.

There is also part of me that really misses the spice that she brought to Kenya's politics, but even more, the vigour and fierceness with which she defended her family. She had no apologies if she crossed the red line doing so. No, she just did what she felt was right.

Were an ordinary mortal to try that, she or he would most certainly end up on the police Occurrence Book. Today, we too in newsrooms mourn her because of the appreciation that the mother instinct in her sometimes, outpaced the structures of relations that we have in our society.

Fare Thee Well Mama Lucy.