Tag Archives: Mary Wambui

Eastern Africa’s Heroine Coast

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ENACT has a great report out on heroine trafficking along the eastern seaboard of Africa (most of the heroine comes from Afghanistan):

Screen Shot 2018-07-02 at 10.28.08 AM.pngIn recent years, the volume of heroin shipped from Afghanistan along a network of maritime routes in East and southern Africa appears to have increased considerably. Most of this heroin is destined for Western markets, but there is a spin-off trade for local consumption. An integrated regional criminal market has developed, both shaping and shaped by political developments in the region. Africa is now experiencing the sharpest increase in heroin use worldwide and a spectrum of criminal networks and political elites in East and southern Africa are substantially enmeshed in the trade. This report focuses on the characteristics of the heroin trade in the region and how it has become embedded in the societies along this route. It also highlights the features of the criminalgovernance systems that facilitate drug trafficking along this coastal route.

The report provides a detailed analysis of the political economy of drug trafficking in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. Among these countries, only Tanzania’s political elites appear to not have links to known drug barons.

In the specific case of Kenya:

Between 2001 and 2008, there were numerous public allegations of drug trafficking in Kenya, and several MPs and their associates were named. Of those listed in a US embassy report, and subsequently named in Parliament as being linked to the narcotics trade, six are current or former holders of political office. Among them, five have held (or still do hold) political office in Kenya’s Eastern Province: William Kabogo, former Kiambu County governor; Gideon Mbuvi (alias Mike Sonko), 2nd Governor of Nairobi; John Harun Mwau, former assistant minister and former MP for Kilome; Simon Mbugua, former MP for Kamukunji (in Nairobi); and Mary Wambui, former MP for Othaya.

From the coastal region, Ali Hassan Joho, Governor of Mombasa, and his brother Abubakar, as well as Mombasa businessman Ali Punjani, were also named as prominent drug traffickers in the same report (in fact, the US report allegedly claims that Punjani and several other traffickers funded Ali Hassan Joho’s 2007 campaign to win a seat as an MP for Mombasa). Harun Mwau, along with businesswoman Mwanaidi Mfundo (alias Mama Lela), who is now in prison in Tanzania on drug-trafficking charges, were listed as drug ‘kingpins’ by the US in 2011. All have denied these allegations. A subsequent investigation into claims made in the Kenyan Parliament by police was said to have absolved them, but in very controversial circumstances.

Harun Mwau, perhaps the most prominent figure caught up in these allegations, has been widely cited by our interlocutors as an early ‘model’ of how to combine the shadow economy, politics and business. Mwau has repeatedly denied being involved in drug trafficking. He is a prominent businessman and former shareholder in the region’s biggest supermarket chain, Nakumatt (holding shares worth US$10 million, which he has since offloaded). He owned a bank (Charterhouse), and has had a varied political career: he headed the anticorruption agency and was a national lawmaker; he also ran for president. He was a major funder of Mwai Kibaki’s election campaign as president and was subsequently appointed as assistant transport minister, a position in which he appears to have been responsible for Kenya’s container transport arrangements and for the Kenya Ports Authority, which controls all ports of entry and inland container terminals in Kenya. Mwau resigned from this position after being named in Parliament as being linked to drug trafficking. For many years, Mwau operated an inland container depot at Athi River on the outskirts of Nairobi, known as the Pepe Container Freight Station.

The whole report is worth reading.

More on Drug Trafficking in Kenya (Complete Edition)

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The scary part of all of this is that President Kibaki’s alleged mistress and daughter are implicated to have been at the center of a drug trafficking ring. The elite presidential escort group was involved in the protection of Armenian drug traffickers.

The only good thing in all of this is that KTN has been able to air the truth, despite earlier attempts by the police to intimidate the two investigative journalists.

[youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q4RAAwz9jko#!]

Kenyan politician John Michuki dead at 80

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John Michuki, MP for Kangema is dead at 80. The late Michuki was a Kenyan politician that many learned to love (and sometimes love and hate). As Transport Minister he brought sanity to the rowdy matatu sector with the much-loved “Michuki Rules”. As Minister for the environment he cleaned up Nairobi River.

His less illustrious contribution was in the security ministry. It is under his watch that the Standard Media group was raided by masked thugs under the pretext that they were about to publish information that would have “impinged on the person of the president.” It later emerged that the media house had information about alleged illegal dealings by a woman rumored to be an illegitimate daughter of president Kibaki. The war on the Mungiki sect was also carried out under his watch – with numerous allegations of extrajudicial killings of hundreds of young men.

The son of a paramount chief, Michuki was among the group of super-wealthy conservative elites who at independence took over power and managed to quiet the more radical elements of the independence movement. Under their watch Kenya emerged as a capitalist enclave even as its many neighbors flirted with communism and African Socialism, with disastrous consequences. For better or worse, Kenya benefited from this “home guard generation” (see Bates 1989, for instance; for a different view see AfriCommons).

The Kenyan political scene will sorely miss Mr. Michuki’s straight talk and ability to deliver. He was among a handful of government officials that actually stood for what they believed, and he had results to back up all his talk. As the Nation reports:

Michuki gained the reputation of being a “ruthless” and efficient manager, who is widely acknowledged as being among the best performing ministers in President Kibaki’s government.

May he rest in peace.

drug trafficking and african politics

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UPDATE: Obama names Harun Mwau as a drug kingpin.

President Obama, in a letter to the US Congress, named a prominent Kenyan member of parliament and one of the wealthiest Kenyans, Harun Mwau, as a drug kingpin. Mr. Mwau is a renowned Kenyan businessman with links to container depots, retail and banking interests, among other investments.

I am still waiting for official reaction from the Kenyan government on the Obama letter to the US Congress.

Kenya, Gambia, Ghana, South Africa, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea. All these countries have experienced allegations that people high up in government – sometimes individuals very close to the heads of state – are involved in drug trafficking. Africa is a major transit point for drugs from Latin America and Asia into Europe.

The latest news on this subject is the jailing of Sheryl Cwele, the wife of South Africa’s intelligence minister. Ms Cwele was found guilty of recruiting women to smuggle drugs in and out of the country. It is hard to imagine that the intelligence minister was not aware of the fact that his wife was a drug trafficker.  Cwele refuses to resign.

In the recent past a woman close to President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya was allegedly linked to a ring of East European drug traffickers. The murder of President Joao Vieira of Guinea-Bissau was also thought to be connected to a dispute involving Latin American drug lords. Ghana’s President Atta Mills has publicly admitted that it is hard to deal with the problem of drug trafficking because powerful people in the country’s security apparatus are involved.

The South African, Kenyan and Ghanaian cases are particularly alarming. Most people would imagine that only incorrigibly inept kleptocracies such as Jammeh’s Gambia or Vieira’s Guinea-Bissau would engage in drug trafficking. If better run places with stronger states cannot tackle drug trafficking who will?

The messy story of drug trafficking in kenya (will Lucy spill the beans?)

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The story of powerful and connected drug lords running amok in Kenya is slowly trending into the realm of conspiracy theories. First it was a case of MPs – Kabogo, Mbuvi “Sonko”, Mwau and Joho – being the suspected culprits. But after a government report cleared the names of the MPs (on the grounds that no evidence was found against them) it emerged (according to Kabogo and Mbuvi) that President Mwai Kibaki’s infamous “mistress” Mary Wambui and her daughter Winnie Wangui Mwai were also connected to drug-trafficking.

Interestingly, in 2007 a parliamentary report linked Ms Wambui, her daughter and President Kibaki’s principal political adviser Stanley Murage to the thuggish Artur brothers. Quoting the parliamentary committee report:

Evidence adduced before the Committee established that the Artur brothers had direct connection at the highest levels of Government. Mary Wambui and her daughter Winnie Wangui Mwai, were close associates of the Artur brothers. Mr. Stanley Murage, Permanent Secretary and Special Adviser to the President on Strategy and based at State House was a key player in the saga, As will appear elsewhere in this report, the ultimate questions are: what did the Head of Government know about this matter? When did he get to know it and what did he do about it?

The report proceeds…

Artur brothers were enjoying state protection at the highest levels of Government. These involved the registration of their two companies, Kensingston Holdings Ltd and Brother Link International, importation of goods where tax was not paid as well as their strange appointment to the police force as Deputy Commissioners of Police, their use of government vehicles, amongst many others

The report concludes on page 39:

From the evidence adduced to date before the Committee, the gravity of this mater (sic) has emerged. It is for example abundantly clear that the two brothers were conmen and drug traffickers. That they enjoyed protection by the high and mighty in the Government is not in doubt.

The report does not say anything implicating President Kibaki in drug trafficking. But it certainly raises questions about how it is that the Kenyan security authorities have been able to unearth evidence about the involvement of all sorts of actors (from the military to police officers to government bureaucrats) linked to drug trafficking without finding a single individual guilty of an offense.

It might be time Kenyans consulted First Lady Lucy Kibaki about the activities and business relations of her much-hated “co-wife.”

President Kibaki: “I have only one wife”

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President Kibaki made a rare show by holding a press conference to dispel rumours that he has a second wife or mistress. With the first lady Lucy Kibaki by his side, the president pleaded with the media to stop peddling what he termed as “uongo” (lies) about his involvement with another woman. He warned that anyone continuing to spread “such lies” would see him in court. After the president made his remarks the stunned members of the press seemed unable to ask any questions. Mrs. Kibaki then had a tearful outburst, calling out Paul Muite, among others. Yesterday Mr. Muite said that the government’s raid on the Standard three years ago was to prevent the newspaper from running a story about the president’s alleged second family. Mr. Muite has refused to either retract his comments or apologise to the first family.

wambui2_2The woman in the middle of the controversy is one Mary Wambui (left), popularly known as a “Narc-Kenya activist.” Ms. Wambui first came onto the national stage after president Kibaki’s election victory in 2002. Back then the media started to inquire about her relationship with the president when a 24 hour security detail was sent to her house.

I commend the president for his bravery on this matter. Whatever his involvement is/was with Ms. Wambui, I am glad that he came out and unequivocally denied that he had more than one wife. The first lady – and by extension the women of Kenya – deserve respect and the rumours about the president’s mistress have not helped that cause. I hope this denunciation of mistresses does not just end with the president but permeates across Kenyan society. I say it is time Kenyan men closed all those “nyumba ndogos”. Kenyan women deserve better.