GEOFFREY MBUTHIA ENTERTAINMENT SUB-EDITOR

27 April 2022

• David Musila got an intimate friendship with the late Kibaki when he was the Central Province PC.

• David Musila was at hand on two occasions to save the life of Kenya's third president.

After the death of Kenya's third president Mwai Kibaki last week, more and more Revelations are emerging about the late.

One of the people giving out their own side of the story was his long-time friend David Musila who disclosed that he had saved the late Kibaki two times.

Mr. Musila had come to know Kibaki well during his tenure as PC of then Central Province.

“As Vice-President, Mr. Kibaki was my boss and it was my duty as the PC in his home province to ensure he was well taken care of whenever he visited my jurisdiction. My office was in Nyeri town, his home district, so we used to interact a lot,” he said.

The first time

According to his memoirs, Seasons of Hope, he saved him during the 1982 attempted coup, when the former PC hurriedly arranged Kibaki’s evacuation from his Othaya home and shielded him from possible attacks by the coup plotters.

“I called him to find out if he was safe and informed him that I was sending a senior police officer whom he knew well to pick him up,” he writes in his book.

They ended up hiding him at the Nyeri Club storeroom as the coup plotters would not expect the VP to take refuge in such an unremarkable place.

They then moved Kibaki to his own house near the Mount Kenya Hospital in Nyeri under heavy guard.

“I directed that he be guarded round the clock and that my wife Beatrice would be in charge of all his meals. She would make lunch and take it to the VP under very heavy escort,” the book reads.

The second time

During the December 2002 presidential campaign. Mr. Kibaki suffered a life-threatening road accident and Mr. Musila was at hand to help him.

After a rally in Kitui town, Kibaki’s convoy left for Nairobi, followed by Musila. At the Machakos turnoff, Kibaki’s Range Rover plunged into a five-metre-deep ditch to avoid a head-on collision with an oncoming vehicle.

“I jumped out of my car and took control of the situation, with a crowd milling at the scene. We pulled him out but he was in so much pain that we couldn’t wait for an ambulance, so we put him in the back seat of my car and drove towards Nairobi,” he explained.

An injured Kibaki then told Mr. Musila to call his son Tony, whose number he knew off-head, and his personal physician, Dr. Dan Gikonyo.

When they arrived at Nairobi hospital, they found a team of doctors already assembled and ready to treat him.