By Kipkalia Kones

Billionaire Joe Wanjui is dead. When we were small kids, on hearing his name, we used to be told that he was the owner of the East African Industries (EAI), the forerunner to Unilever Kenya. Those guys used to manufacture nearly everything we saw at home; Kimbo, Vaseline, Closeup, Omo, Elianto….the works.

I’m often amazed by how great people in this country die quietly and their stories fade off like that. There are things people do not know about Wanjui. Apart from the fact that at some point, he was the Chairman of the DP Council of Elders, the moneyed Kikuyu businessmen who funded Mwai Kibaki and his party. But after the 2002 elections, when Kibaki’s surrogates brought back tribalism by the truckloads and shut out the other communities, Wanjui was the powerful insider voice who constantly called Kibaki to order and demanded that the government be run in a way that sustained not only lasting peace, but an environment conducive for business and thrift. He also frowned on the contempt and hubris exhibited by the new Mount Kenya power brokers under Kibaki.

But I pay tribute to Joe Wanjui for two main reasons…

One, and especially in the current Kenyan circumstances, he was one of the last among a breed of Kenyan billionaires who actually MANUFACTURED SOMETHING to make money, a far cry from the modern Kenyan quick-fix billionaires who amass wealth through “ni God manze”. This fact is important in determining the stark contrast between Kikuyu Entitlement and Kalenjin Incompetence. The Kikuyu old money networks built lasting money through industry. Even those alleged to have stolen money from government ran thriving private industrial concerns and left the government parastatals alive. Their Kalenjin counterparts under both Moi and Ruto would wake up and become billionaires overnight, leaving dust where previously a state enterprise stood.

Because people of Wanjui’s ilk knew the value of wealth and its sustainability, they didn’t go around carrying money in sacks at harambees, or tapping their feet like illiterate penguins, to illustrate the count by each million. Certainly, this group wouldn’t don watches of 20m, because those who make money genuinely don’t tie it to an asset around a wrist. Amidst the Gen Z protests, perhaps we need to take a step back and ask what the new Kalenjin power brokers around Ruto, and their fraudulent friends like @DidmusWaBarasa, have done to buy helicopters overnight. Because Joe Wanjui and his peers showed us that the credible way to create wealth was to first create a going concern, build it and employ people. But the Sudis of our time have turned this philosophy upside down.
The second and bigger reason I celebrate Joe Wanjui happened during interesting times. At the peak of the fallout in the Kibaki regime in 2005, when the LDP wing, and especially the Luo community, had all but bid farewell to the NARC-Rainbow coalition, the vacancy for Vice Chancellor at the University of Nairobi came up for filling. Part of the reforms brought by the Narc government was that unlike previous times, when the VC was appointed by the President, this was going to be the very first time a VC was being competitively interviewed. You should have seen the top scholars, foreigners from Europe, America, South Africa, Asia and the Middle East, who all wanted the job, arriving at JKIA for the interview. Joe Wanjui was then the Chancellor of the UoN, again the first time the President of the Republic wasn’t the one. He would chair the interviews.

At the end, three scholars were shortlisted. Prof Jacob Kaimenyi, a Meru. Prof James Kimani, a Kikuyu. Prof George Albert Omore Magoha, a Luo. The very powerful Merus in government; Muthaura, Mwiraria and Kiraitu Murungi, wanted Kaimenyi as VC. The very powerful Kikuyus, led by Chris Murungaru, Stanley Murage and John Michuki, wanted Kimani. Chancellor Wanjui decided to call a press conference. Stretching his hand for illustration, he said “Prof Magoha’s CV is thiiiis long! He has emerged the best and will get the job. He knows he has to perform in this job, but he deserves the appointment”.

Wanjui was aware that if he didn’t announce this publicly, Magoha, who had by then been known in many circles as a sort of Luo supremacist, would never get the job. But as Chancellor and a man who had managed some of the biggest industries in Kenya, he also knew that if he didn’t appoint the best VC for his university, he would stare into decline and tribalism at the premier institution. With that, he left the powerful government forces who wanted their tribesmen to go and screw a mango. Watching this presser, I promised myself that I would respect Joe Wanjui forever. Because there were few men who could stand up for principles and moral probity like he did that day. As he stood up, he said to Prof Magoha, “Go out and undertake your duties without fear or favour”. And Magoha did.

You won’t find such fine men today. And it’s a shame.