Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua has recalled a day the late retired President Mwai Kibaki banged a table during a Cabinet meeting after one of his ministers switched to Gikuyu language while addressing national issues.
Mutua on Kibaki’s leadership
Speaking to a local television on Wednesday morning, Mutua said Kibaki reprimanded the minister and asked him to adhere to English or Swahili.
“He was so angry that he banged the table and told the minister; this is a government office, not your home. This is not your village, here we speak English or Kiswahili. For Kibaki, it didn’t matter whether you were from his community or his village.
Mutua on language in State House
“Even his kids when they came to visit him in his office, they spoke to him in English. It was about Kenya, and not about one tribe. He demystified all the tribal things. There was no Gikuyu spoken in State House because that was his mother tongue,” Mutua recalled.
The governor, while singling out moments when Kibaki became visibly angry, said he once reprimanded a minister for speaking ill of another minister.
“He did not want people to speak ill of the government they were working in. But he was a man of cool temperament. At times he could keep quiet and you knew he was not happy about something,” Mutua added.
He had eulogised Kibaki as an honest, straightforward and amazing boss.
State funeral
Today will be the third day the body of the former Head of State will be lying in state, in line with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive that he be accorded a State funeral.
Immediately the announcement was made, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) took over the coordination, planning, security and ceremonial arrangements of the funeral.
The State funeral begins with the body lying in state, where it is placed in a State building usually without a coffin to allow the public to view it and pay their last respects.
