Businesswoman Wangui wa Ngirici, the Kirinyaga Woman Rep candidate in this year’s elections, stirred political waters with her multi-million land and aerial campaigns in the County. The first timer won in the Jubilee nominations, ousting incumbent Winnie Karimi Njuguna.
Choppers, top of the range vehicles are the hallmarks of her campaigns with Wangui’s chief campaigner being her husband, Andrew Peter Ngirici who explains that “When you see me here I come as Wangui’s supporter but when we get to our home, she is my wife and nothing short of this.’’
Ngiciri has bankrolled his wife’s campaigns whose cost runs into millions of shillings. But the man with interests in among others; real estate, property and mining dropped out of class four at Kirigo primary school for unknown reasons. None of his siblings attended secondary school and his two brothers eked a living doing manual jobs in Kerugoya town.
Ngirici himself, washed cars besides riding a donkey and ox cart for Mzee Arthur Munyi, his fellow villager at Kaitheri area.
Ngirici’s mother, Rachel Wanjiku, also owned an ox cart which she assigned to her son after he dropped out of school. “Ngirici even attempted suicide by drinking some pesticide after his mother forced him back to school,’’ a family source whispered to The Nairobian.
Ngirici assisted Mzee Munyi in loading crates of beer from a depot for distribution to various outlets within the outskirts of the town.
Routinely he would drive the donkey cart to markets like Kiamwenja and Kiamuthambi about five kilometres away to deliver the beer.
But fortunes changed when the late spymaster, James Kanyotu ‘poached’ Ngirici from Mzee Munyi who later died in a tragic road accident while ferrying liquor. His old donkey survived. But the business died with him.
Kanyotu like Mzee Munyi also hailed from Kaitheri village and had known the Ngirici family for many years after he (Kanyotu’s father) settled near there in early 1940s.
Japheth Kariuki Kanyotu hailed from Kiambu and worked as a store man in the Colonial government which posted him to Kerugoya hospital.
Stories are told of how Ngirici’s grandfather sheltered Kanyotu’s father and his family leading to their long association.
Kanyotu’s father prospered and even bought many parcels of land and settled there with his family after retirement.
Kanyotu and Ngirici knew each other from childhood and little wonder he picked him as his sidekick when he served as Kenya’s longest spymaster, traversing the Kenyatta and Moi regimes for 27 years.
Ngirici’s father, the late Mzee Muriu, who had seven kids (including four daughters) subdivide his land among his three sons. Ngirici, the youngest of the sons, sold his portion to Kanyotu for Sh780,000, money he used to buy two second-hand matatus.
A resident in the know recalled the entry into transport business as what elevated Ngirici from a former ox cart attendant distributing alcohol to being Kanyotu’s hatchet man.
Kanyotu was a man with immense wealth. And bright Ngirici knew all the tentacles of Kanyotu’s financial hydra spreading into real estate, property, security, hospitality and large-scale farming besides interests in insurance, banking, manufacturing and health. There was money in local and international banks.
Kanyotu’s fortune was estimated at Sh20 billion at the time of his death.
“Ngirici stood alone by Kanyotu’s hospital bed when he took his last breathe and you can therefore see the degree of trust the former top spy had in him,’’ said a neighbour who sought anonymity.
The neighbour also rubbished claims that Ngirici is an illegitimate son of Kanyotu arguing: ‘’I am older than Ngirici by far, and I have known all his siblings and the family at large. They all look alike and their mother is a generous woman though from a humble background until her son’s fortunes changed for better.’’
The late Kanyotu and Kamlesh Pattni masterminded the Goldenberg scandal that cost Kenyan tax payers over Sh60 billion. The two were directors of Goldenberg International which sought export compensation for fictitious gold in the early to mid-1990s.
