THE STEADMAN CONNECTION WITH KIBAKI REVEALED

Published on December 11, 2007, 12:00 am

By Jibril Adan

The relationship between Mr Roger Steadman of Steadman Group and a powerful clique around President Kibaki can now be revealed.

Court documents exclusively obtained by The Standard show that the pollster has been a close friend of Mr George Muhoho, the de facto head of the Kibaki re-election campaign and Mr Joe Wanjui, the Party of National Unity (PNU) lead trustee and strategist.

So tight has been the friendship that Muhoho once stepped in as Steadman’s father in a Kikuyu traditional marriage ceremony at which Wanjui played spokesman. That was way back in 1998, according to documents from a 2002 court case.

Apart from being Kibaki allies, both Muhoho and Wanjui hold high-profile public positions. Muhoho, a relative of the Kenyatta family, is the Managing Director of the Kenya Airports Authority, while Wanjui is the Chancellor of the University of Nairobi.

The documents that have lifted the lid on Steadman’s best guarded secret— his links with top Kibaki men—stem from a court tussle six years ago between him and a woman, Ms Monique Mukami Kibara, who had worked and lived with him for some time.

Mr Steadman has been the target of attacks by the Opposition led by Mr Raila Odinga (ODM) and Mr Kalonzo Musyoka (ODM-Kenya), owing to his close links with State House he has been fiddling with the opinion polls carried out by his firm, Steadman Group, to cast the President as placed favourably to win the December 27 General Election. His relationship with these elite has, however, only been mere conjecture until when his links were disclosed.

I am not a politician

But Steadman on Monday emphatically denied that his friendship with Kibaki’s associates could affect the outcome of the polls. He said his firm does research for many companies and it was unfortunate that politicians reacted so badly to opinion poll results.

"It is absolutely wrong for anyone to imagine that the results have been influenced," he told The Standard, saying he built his companies on integrity and would not let anybody influence the results.

"I don’t want to be seen to be aligned to anyone and that is why I am non- political," he said. He also said he had friends in all political parties and it was therefore wrong to believe the claims that the results favour PNU.

Steadman said his company accurately predicted the 2005 referendum and the outcome of the December 27 polls will prove him right again. He also disputed claims that senior managers of his firm had private meetings with PNU operatives, saying all his employees were people of high integrity. He, however, confirmed Muhoho and Wanjui are his friends.

"I feel very strongly about what is said by politicians, but I do not want to engage them in disputes because that would support their claim that I have taken a political stand," he said. In the court papers, Kibara had sued Steadman, claiming that she was his wife and wanted part of the property he owned. She was at the time a director of Steadman Research Services Limited and Steadman and Associates (U) Limited.

Even though the two lived together for several years, Steadman’s claim was that he had not completed the marriage ceremony that would have made Kibara his wife.

They were supposed to have married under Kikuyu customary law and had only completed the first stage of the ceremony, Steadman’s friends had said. During the course of the trial the people who witnessed the ceremony gave evidence.

When Steadman visited Kibara’s friends in 1998, he was accompanied by, among others, Muhoho and Wanjui.

Wanjui acted as the father of Steadman, while Muhoho acted as a negotiator. "Sometimes in 1998, I was asked by Joe Wanjui to take the place of a negotiator on behalf of the respondent while he (Joe Wanjui) was going to act as the father of the respondent," Muhoho says in an affidavit sworn under oath and filed in the High Court of Kenya.

Muhoho said they went to Bahati, Nakuru where they gave Kibara’s mother three live cows and the equivalent of 30 goats in cash.

"That we promised to go back to finalise the ruracio and agree the ngurario date. To the best of my knowledge we never went back to the applicant’s home to finalise the ruracio (bridewealth) and perform ngurario to seal the marriage," he said.

Another witness who gave evidence in the case, Mr Wilson Gitau, Kibara’s uncle, said: "One Mr George Muhoho said that the purpose of the visit was uthoni (relationship between parents of the couple arising out of betrothal). He said that "his son" Roger was interested in marrying one girl in the homestead, that despite Roger’s age and baldness, he was their son. Wanjui was introduced as Roger’s father and acted as such," Gitau said in his affidavit. Muhoho had said to the best of his knowledge, no ceremony had been completed and as such marriage was not sealed. Steadman’s case was that after the first ceremony of determining the pride price his relationship with Kibara deteriorated and he did not proceed.

The dispute between Steadman and Kibara was later settled out of court with a concession by the plaintiff that no marriage had been celebrated.

As part of the consent, Kibara also agreed to relinquish her job as a director of Steadman Research Services Limited and Steadman and Associates Uganda Limited. The law firm of AH Malik and Company Advocates represented Steadman while Martha Koome and Co Advocates and Waweru Gatonye and Co Advocates represented the applicant. Koome is now a judge.

The properties which Kibara had claimed she wanted a share of were a company called Kenya Midani Limited, Steadman and associates, Steadman and Associates Uganda Limited, Steadman and Associates Tanzania Limited, Steadman Research Services Kenya, Steadman Trains Kenya, Sprint Promotions Kenya, Sprint Promotions Uganda, Sprint Promotions Ethiopia and Sprint Promotions Tanzania.

Steadman said some politicians were making claims intended to destroy what took 24 years to build.