Veteran politician Maina Wanjigi and father to 2022 presidential aspirant and billionaire businessman Jimi Wanjigi, died on June 29, 2024. The seasoned politician breathed his last at Nairobi Hospital aged 92.
Wanjigi left an indelible legacy, having been a Member of Parliament for 25 years and served in various cabinet positions. If we were to list the people who made Kenya, Wanjigi would be at the top.
One of his most memorable achievements while in government was developing Gikomba Market, one of Kenya’s biggest markets. He is also remembered for advocating for free primary education.
Moreover, Wanjigi was strongly against the allocation of huge plots of land to the rich and powerful after Kenya’s independence and instead pushed to have the landless receive land.
Besides that, Wanjigi was an accomplished businessman with shares across several companies including East African Cables, Centum and Kenya Airways.
Early life and education
Maina Wanjigi was born on October 7th, 1931, in Wahudura Village, Murang’a County, to Wanjigi wa Mucugia and Mariamu Wangeci. He grew up during the colonial era before Kenya gained independence.
He was a smart kid and ended up attending some of the best educational institutions. He began his education at Wahudura Primary School in 1938 before going to Kagumo Intermediate School in Nyeri in 1943. There he sat the common entrance examination, passed, and gained admission to Alliance High School.
After Alliance, he went to Uganda’s Makerere University, where he earned a Diploma in Agriculture.
When he returned to Kenya, Wanjigi started working as an assistant agricultural officer in Murang’a. This came at a time when trade unionist and pan-Africanist Tom Mboya was championing for higher education despite the colonial government’s opposition.
Mboya sought support from America to have bright and capable Africans receive scholarships to study in the US. He gained support and funding from several North American educational institutions, foundations, and individuals such as the African American Students Foundation (AASF) and African Americans including Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier, Martin Luther King Jr, and millionaire businessman Bill Scheinman.
Mboya sought the help of Dr. Julius Kiano and Kariuki Njiiri, both graduates of American universities, to select capable Africans for the airlift. Kiano urged Wanjigi to apply for the program in 1958.
The businessman was one of the lucky few whose applications were successful. However, the officials at the Agriculture Ministry, where he was an assistant, refused to give him study leave to take up the prestigious scholarship.
Consequently, Wanjigi quit, traveled to the US, and joined the University of Connecticut. He earned a BSc in Agriculture in one year. Wanjigi was then offered a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study applied Agriculture Economics at Stanford University. He earned a Master’s in Agriculture Economics.
Career
In 1961, Wanjigi returned to Kenya. However, the colonial government claimed he was “overqualified” and as such there was no job for him at the Ministry of Agriculture. At a loss for options, Wanjigi opted for an agricultural officer job in Nyeri despite his extensive qualifications. Fortunately for Wanjigi, with independence came bigger and better opportunities for him.
Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta, recognized Wanjigi’s potential and appointed him the Director of Settlement in 1965. He oversaw the settlement of thousands of landless Kenyans.
He was tasked with implementing the one million-acre settlement scheme, which was funded by a £26 million loan from the British government and the World Bank.
Wanjigi’s responsibilities included identifying land for settlement, negotiating buy-outs, and overseeing the orderly transfer of titles to landless citizens.
However, things did not go smoothly for him as the powerful barons in government wanted the land for themselves.
Wanjigi protested against Kenyatta’s Z-Plot scheme that saw top government officials being allocated 100 acres of land. He urged the government to allocate land to the landless instead of apportioning it to the powerful, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.
Regardless of the challenges, Wanjigi managed to settle thousands of landless families during his tenure. That said, several families of freedom fighters did not get land largely due to the land-grabbing schemes of Kenyatta-era barons, and this earned Wanjigi many enemies.
Wanjigi’s stay at the Ministry for Lands and Settlement was short-lived as he was appointed to the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation in 1968 as executive director.
He was in charge of the Africanization programmes aiming to integrate Kenyans into the industrial and commercial sectors previously dominated by whites.
The Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC) and Kenya Industrial Estates (KIE) were established during this time and played a big role in promoting local entrepreneurship and reducing the country’s reliance on imports.
Political career
In 1969, Wanjigi resigned from his position after Tom Mboya’s assassination. That marked his entry into politics. Mboya’s death had left a vacancy in the Kamukunji Constituency MP position. Wanjigi contested the by-election and won.
He ended up being Kamukunji’s MP from 1969 to 1992, except in 1979 and 1983 when he lost to Philip Gor. During his tenure, he initiated and developed Gikomba Market. He was also instrumental in establishing the jua kali sector in Shauri Moyo.
He also advocated for free primary education, a dream that would be fully realised about 30 years later during President Mwai Kibaki’s tenure. The politician was appointed Assistant Minister for Agriculture in 1970 by Kenyatta. He held this position even after former President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi took office in 1978.
Moi then appointed him Chairman of Kenya Airways in 1979. Wanjigi lost his Kamukunji seat to Gor that same year and as such started focusing on business. As Kenya Airways chairman, he facilitated the airline’s partnership with Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM), which helped modernize its operations and fleet.
The businessman reclaimed his Kamukunji seat in 1983. Moi then appointed him Minister for Tourism. Under Moi’s regime, he served in several dockets as a minister, including Public Works and Housing, Cooperative Development, Environment, Natural Resources, and Marketing.
In the Public Works Ministry, Wanjigi called for the preference of local contractors when awarding tenders. He also introduced the Sectional Titles Act and worked on slum upgrading projects. During his time as Minister for Cooperative Development, he established savings and credit cooperative societies across the country. He also launched the Cooperative Bank of Kenya.
Wanjigi’s political decline started in 1990 with the demolition of Muoroto slums by the Nairobi City Commission led by Fred Gumo. Wanjigi openly protested the killing of seven people in the demolitions and strongly criticized the government’s actions terming them cruel and inhumane. Consequently, the politician was dismissed from the cabinet and expelled from the ruling party KANU.
After his dismissal, Wanjigi continued advocating for political reforms and joined the opposition when Kenya transitioned to multi-partyism. He joined Kenneth Matiba’s Ford Asili faction of the original Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) party. He tried in futility to unify Matiba’s and Jaramogi Oginga’s FORD factions.
He ran for the Kamukunji parliamentary seat in 1992 and the Mathioya parliamentary seat in 1997 and lost both times. At this point, he retired from politics and decided to focus on his business.
Businesses
Wanjigi was the founder of the Kwacha Group of Companies currently run by his son, a tycoon in his own right, Jimmy Wanjigi.
The Kwacha group of companies houses several businesses belonging to the Wanjigi family, with interests in various sectors of the Kenyan economy including agri-business, financial services, industrials and real estate.
Wanjigi through Kwacha previously had a controlling stake in the multi-billion Carbacid Investments, a company dealing in manufacturing carbon dioxide gas for food processing, industrial use, medical use, and dry ice.
According to Reuters, the Company has two mines, a fleet of long-haul trucks with cryogenic tankers and many CO2 storage tanks located at customer premises, a fleet of pressurised rigid and semi-trailer tankers, which distribute CO2 all over the East Africa and Central Africa region.
The veteran politician served as Carbacid’s director since its inception in 1970, up until 2018 when he chose not to offer himself up for re-election. Besides being a director, Wanigi also served as Carbacid’s chairman from 2001 to 2016.
The nonagenarian also had shares in cable manufacturing company, East African Cables. The company has four manufacturing facilities in East Africa and a distribution network spanning several countries including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan and Ethiopia.
Further, Wanjigi through his Kwacha Group had stakes in Kenya’s flag carrier airline Kenya Airways, petroleum and gas products supplier Total Kenya and Barclays Bank.
The mogul also had a hand in real estate through Centum Investments, an affiliate of ICDC. The company has interests in real estate, private equities and marketable securities. Notable real estate projects that Centum is involved in include Two Rivers Development, Vipingo Development and Pearl Marina. Wanjigi also owns coffee estates in Murang’a, Nyeri and Kitamaiyu.
Philanthropy
During his time at Stanford University, he became the president of the African Students Union and helped settle leaders and students from Kenya’s student airlift. He established the Maina Wanjigi Secondary School, which he built from scratch.
Furthermore, he started the Maina Wanjigi Foundation to revitalize the 700-hectare Dagoretti Forest. Wanjigi also established and oversaw the building of Murang’a University.
Family
The veteran politician was married to Mary Wambui Wanjigi, with whom he had four children: Josephine, Jimi, Nancy, and Sani. In addition, Wanjigi was blessed with eight grandchildren: Maria, Kesa, Muthandi, Maina, Maina Jr., Wambui, Wanjiru, and Kairu, and one great-grandchild, Wanjiru.
