uhuru kenyatta

Quick facts about uhuru kenyatta

1. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, born on October 26, 1961, in Nairobi, Kenya, to Kenya's founding father Jomo Kenyatta and his fourth wife, Mama Ngina Kenyatta. His name "Uhuru" is the Swahili word translating directly to "freedom" or "independence", while "Kenyatta" derives from the Kikuyu phrase for the "beaded belt" or "light of Kenya."
2. He was handpicked by retiring President Daniel arap Moi in 2002 as the KANU presidential candidate, suffering a landslide defeat to Mwai Kibaki before climbing back through ministerial posts to serve as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (2009–2012).
3. He became the 4th President of the Republic of Kenya, serving two terms from April 9, 2013, to September 13, 2022, securing victories in the disputed 2013 election and the historic 2017 election which saw the Supreme Court of Kenya nullify the initial August 2017 presidential vote due to illegalities before he won the repeat poll.
4. He was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in December 2010 for five counts of crimes against humanity including murder, deportation, rape, and persecution during the 2007–2008 post-election violence that claimed over 1,100 lives becoming the first sitting head of state to appear before The Hague court before prosecutor Fatou Bensouda withdrew all charges in December 2014 citing state non-cooperation and witness intimidation.
5. They accumulated unprecedented sovereign debt levels under his administration, expanding Kenya's national debt stock from KSh 1.8 trillion ($18 billion) in 2013 to over KSh 8.6 trillion ($70+ billion) by 2022, driven by mega-infrastructure ventures like the $4.7 billion Chinese-funded Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the Nairobi Expressway.
6. He was exposed in the October 2021 Pandora Papers leak as secretly owning a foundation and a network of offshore companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands holding assets evaluated at over $31 million (KSh 3.3 billion), alongside his family's vast domestic empire spanning over 500,000 acres of prime Kenyan real estate, Commercial Bank of Africa (NCBA), and Brookside Dairy.
7. They suffered severe state corruption and public health governance scandals under his tenure, notably the KEMSA "COVID-19 Millionaires" scandal involving the embezzlement of millions of dollars in medical procurement funds, alongside the $2 billion Eurobond scandal.
8. He orchestrated the historic March 2018 "Handshake" with long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga, bypassing his own Deputy President William Ruto to launch the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI)—a constitutional amendment package that was ultimately struck down as unconstitutional by the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court of Kenya.