Alfred Mutua: 'Kibaki Never Allowed the Use of Mother Tongue in State House.'

Mutua, who worked in Kibaki's administration from 2002 to 2012, described the late President as a "perfect gentleman" who was eager to combat negative ethnicity in his administration.

According to Dr. Mutua, President Kibaki did not permit the use of local languages in the office and would become visibly upset - an apparently rare occurrence - whenever the policy was broken.

“Kibaki was a perfect gentleman in terms of running the government, he never allowed the use of mother tongue in government offices,”

“There was one time a cabinet minister in a meeting switched to Kikuyu and he was so angry that he banged the table and said ‘This is a government office, not your home or village!’ Here we speak in English or Swahili.” Mutua added.

“Even his kids when they came to see him they spoke to him in English at the office. He demystified the whole tribal thing, there was no Kikuyu spoken in the State House.” Mutua said.

Mutua, who described Mzee Kibaki as "even-tempered," said it was one of only two times he had seen him angry.

According to Mutua, the second incident occurred when an unnamed cabinet minister began a petty squabble with a colleague in the President's presence, which shocked him.

The other time was when he reprimanded one minister who had spoken ill about another minister because he did not have space for childish squabbling” Mutua said.

“He was cool, at times you could see that he was not happy about something but he kept quiet.”

Dr. Mutua described Kibaki as a leader who trusted in government processes and gave his team space to complete their tasks during his one-on-one working relationship with the former President.

“He gave us a free hand… we shared with him, had State of the Nation meetings but sometimes with issuing statements he didn’t have to clear everything, he trusted the government systems.”