Uhuru Kenyatta

Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (born 26 October 1961) is a Kenyan politician who was elected as President of Kenya in March 2013. Uhuru Kenyatta is also an accused suspect for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Netherlands. He has served in the government of Kenya as Deputy Prime Minister since 2008 and was also the Member of Parliament for Gatundu South Constituency. Kenyatta also served as Chairman of Kenya African National Union (KANU), which was a part of the Party of National Unity (PNU).

 

Kenyatta is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president (1964–1978). His origin in Kenya's Kikuyu tribe has played a key role in his political life. His name, Uhuru, is Swahili for "freedom". He attended St Mary's School in Nairobi. From there he went on to study political science at Amherst College in the United States.

Nominated to Parliament in 2001, he became Minister for Local Government under President Daniel arap Moi and, despite his political inexperience, was favored by President Moi as his successor; Kenyatta ran as KANU's candidate in the December 2002 presidential election, but lost to opposition candidate Mwai Kibaki by a large margin. He subsequently became Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. He backed Kibaki for re-election in the December 2007 presidential election and was named Minister of Local Government by Kibaki in January 2008, before becoming Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade in April 2008 as part of a coalition government.

 
Subsequently Kenyatta was Minister of Finance from 2009 to 2012, while remaining Deputy Prime Minister. Accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of committing crimes against humanity in relation to the violent aftermath of the 2007 election, he resigned as Minister of Finance on 26 January 2012.

From: www.wikipedia.org

Raila Odinga

Raila Amollo Odinga (born January 7, 1945), also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. Odinga, a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, served as Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002 and as Minister of Roads, Public Works, and Housing from 2003 to 2005. He was the main opposition candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Following a violent post-electoral crisis, Odinga took office as Prime Minister in April 2008, serving as supervisor of a national unity coalition government.

Odinga is the son of the first Vice President of Kenya, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga; Raila's brother, Oburu Odinga, is also currently a Member of Parliament (MP). Raila is commonly known by his first name due to coincidence: he was an MP at the same time as his father between 1992 and 1994, and is currently in the House with Oburu. Raila was a presidential contender in the 1997 elections, coming third after President Daniel arap Moi of KANU and Mwai Kibaki, the current president of Kenya and then a member of the Democratic Party. Odinga campaigned to run for president in the December 2007 elections on an Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) ticket.

On September 1, 2007, Raila Odinga was elected as the presidential candidate of the ODM. He garnered significant support in the 2007 General Election, with majority of the votes in Rift Valley, Western, his native Nyanza, Coast, Nairobi (Capital) and North Eastern provinces. Kibaki led in his native Central province and beat Raila in Eastern province. Out of the 2007 elections, his party, ODM, got 99 out of 210 seats in the parliament, making the ODM the single largest party in parliament.

On December 30, 2007, the chairman of the Kenyan election commission controversially declared Raila's opponent, incumbent president Kibaki, the winner of the presidential election by a margin of about 230,000 votes. Raila disputed the results, alleging fraud by the election commission but refused to adhere to the constitutional procedure and present an election petition before the courts. Most opinion polls had speculated that Odinga would defeat president Kibaki. Independent international observers have since stated that the poll was marred by irregularities favouring both PNU and ODM, especially at the final vote tallying stages. Many ODM supporters across the country rioted against the announced election results.

Early Life

Raila Odinga was born at Maseno Church Missionary Society Hospital, in Maseno, Kisumu District, Nyanza Province on January 7, 1945 to Oginga and Mary Juma Odinga. He went to Kisumu Union Primary School, Maranda Primary and High School where he stayed until 1962. He spent the next two years at the Herder Institut, a part of the philological faculty at the University of Leipzig in East Germany. He received a scholarship that in 1965 sent him to the Technical University, Magdeburg (now a part of Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg) in the GDR. In 1970, he graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. While studying in East Berlin during the Cold War, as a Kenyan he was able to visit West Berlin through the Checkpoint Charlie. When visiting West Berlin, he used to buy goods not available in East Berlin and bring them to his friends in East Berlin.

On returning to Kenya in 1970, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi. In 1971 he established the Standard Processing Equipment Construction & Erection Ltd (later renamed East African Spectre), a company manufacturing liquid petroleum gas cylinders. In 1974, he was appointed group standards manager of the Kenya Bureau of Standards, in 1978 he was promoted to its Deputy Director, a post he held until his 1982 detention.

Personal Life

Baptised as an Anglican in his youth Odinga later became a Born-Again Christian through an Evangelical church in Nairobi.

Odinga is married to Ida Odinga (born Ida Anyango Oyoo). They live in Karen, Nairobi (but have a second home at Opoda Farm, Bondo District). They have four children—two sons and two daughters: Fidel (born 1973), Rosemary (1977), Raila Jr (1979) and Winnie (1990). Fidel is named after Fidel Castro and Winnie after Winnie Mandela. Winnie is currently studying Communication and International Area Studies as a double major student at Drexel University of Philadelphia, PA.

In a January 2008 BBC interview, Odinga asserted that he was the first cousin of U.S. president Barack Obama through Obama's father. However, Barack Obama's paternal uncle denied any direct relation to Odinga, stating "Odinga's mother came from this area, so it is normal for us to talk about cousins. But he is not a blood relative." Obama's father came from the same Luo community as Odinga.

He briefly played soccer for Luo Union (later known as Re-Union) as a midfielder.

Raila Odinga is an industrialist with interests in liquefied gas cylinder manufacturing (the East African Spectre), industrial ethanol production and Petroleum import and distribution.

Mr. Odinga has been appointed by African Union to mediate in Ivory Coast between Outarra and Gbagbo.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Mwai Kibaki

Mwai Kibaki (born 15 November 1931) is a Kenyan politician who has been the third President of Kenya since December 2002.

Kibaki was previously Vice-President of Kenya for ten years from 1978 to 1988 and also held cabinet ministerial positions, including a widely acclaimed stint as Minister for Finance (1969–1981), Minister for Home Affairs (1982–1988) and Minister for Health (1988–1991).

After resigning as a cabinet minister in 1991, Kibaki served as an opposition Member of Parliament from 1991 up to his election as Kenya's third president in 2002 after two unsuccessful bids for the Kenyan presidency in 1992 and 1997.

He was sworn in on the night of 30 December 2007 for his second term as president after controversially emerging as the winner of a bitterly contested election that was marked by accusations of fraud and widespread irregularities that led to the post-election violence of 2007-2008.

Earlier Life and Education

Kibaki was born in Gatuyaini village in Othaya division of Nyeri District. He is the youngest son of Kikuyu peasants Kibaki Gĩthĩnji and Teresia Wanjikũ (both now deceased). Though baptized as Emilio Stanley by Italian missionaries in his youth, he has been known for all intents and purposes as his name. Family oral history maintains that his early education was made possible by his much older brother-in-law, Paul Muruthi, who insisted that young Mwai should go to school instead of spending his days grazing his father's sheep and cattle and baby-sitting his little nephews and nieces for his older sister.

Kibaki turned out to be an exemplary student. He attended Gatuyainĩ School for the first two years, where he completed what was then called Sub "A" and sub "B" (the equivalent of standard one and two or first and second grade). He later joined Karima mission school for the three more classes of primary school. He later moved to Mathari School (now Nyeri High School) between 1944 and 1946 for Standard four to six, where, in addition to his academic studies, he learnt carpentry and masonry as students would repair furniture and provide material for maintaining the school's buildings. He also grew his own food as all students in the school were expected to do, and earned extra money during the school holidays by working as a conductor on buses operated by the defunct Othaya African Bus Union. After Karima Primary and Nyeri Boarding primary schools, he proceeded to Mang'u High School where he studied between 1947 and 1950. He passed with a maximum of six points in his "O" level examination.

Influenced by the veterans of the First and Second World Wars in his native village, Kibaki considered becoming a soldier in his final year in Mang'u. However, a ruling by the Chief colonial secretary, Walter Coutts, which barred the recruitment of the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru communities into the army, put paid to his military aspirations. Kibaki instead attended Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he studied Economics, History and Political Science, and graduated best in his class in 1955 with a First Class Honours Degree (BA) in Economics. After his graduation, Kibaki took up an appointment as Assistant Sales Manager Shell Company of East Africa, Uganda Division. During the same year, he earned a scholarship entitling him to postgraduate studies in any British University. He consequently enrolled at the prestigious London School of Economics for a B.Sc in public finance, graduating with a distinction. He went back to Makerere in 1958 where he taught as an Assistant Lecturer in the economics department until 1960. In 1962, Kibaki married Lucy Muthoni, the daughter of a Church Minister, who was then a secondary school Head Teacher.

Personal Life

President Kibaki is officially married to Lucy Muthoni. They together have four children: Judy Wanjiku, Jimmy Kibaki, David Kagai, and Tony Githinji. They also have three grandchildren: Joy Jamie Marie, Mwai Junior and Krystina Muthoni. Jimmy Kibaki has begun to emerge as a politician in his own right, likely to be his father's political heir.

In 2004 the media reported that Kibaki has a second spouse allegedly married under customary law, Mary Wambui, and a daughter, Wangui Mwai. After the news broke, the State House released an unsigned statement that Kibaki's only immediate family is his wife, Lucy and their four children. The Washington Post termed the entire scandal as a "new Kenyan soap opera". In 2009, Kibaki, accompanied by a furious Lucy Kibaki, held a press conference to re-state to the world that he only has one wife.

President Kibaki is known to be a keen golfer and is one of the longtime members of the Muthaiga Golf Club.

He is a practicing Christian and belongs to the Roman Catholic Church.

From : www.wikipedia.org