How Moi plotted to bring down Nyachae’s business empire

Nyachae, the son of a boisterous wealthy colonial chief, and Moi, the son of a father largely unknown and with little to celebrate for, established vast business empires, making them among the richest people in the country.

Whereas Moi helped Nyachae in the early years of his presidency to accumulate wealth, he also worked behind the scenes to destroy his vast business empire.

In the mid-1980s, Nyachae had established himself as an industrialist, manufacturing nails, chain links and barbed wire at a factory in Miritini, Mombasa.

He then transported the finished products to his godown in Kisii town, where he had established booming business. In 1985, eager to further grow his business, Nyachae sought the help of the government in obtaining land in Kisii to build a factory.

While issuing a personal statement in Parliament on October 12, 2005, Nyachae who was by then the minister for energy, said Sansora Oil Mills Ltd, of which he was the chairman, was allocated an industrial plot to build an oil processor in 1985.

“The plot is behind Nyanza Research Station, next to Kisii Bottlers Ltd. Construction of the factory was completed and commissioned by His Excellency the Retired President (Moi) in 1986,” he is quoted in the parliamentary Hansard.

When Moi went to open the factory, he found out that it had been built in record time and that Nyachae’s enterprise included a firm making nails, chain links, barbed wire and other products.

Interviews with those in the know say the President was so shocked that he ordered the intelligence service, then headed by James Kanyotu, to provide a report on businesses owned by the head of the public service.

Torture and jail

This was quickly followed by a smear campaign led by newly appointed Internal Security and Administration permanent secretary Hezekiah Oyugi.

There are reports of Oyugi enticing politicians from Gusii to bring down Nyachae. The politicians addressed public events in which they claimed Nyachae had build a vast business empire and was rallying the Gusii to overthrow the government.

The most notorious among them was former South Mugirango MP David Kombo, the current Kisii County assembly Speaker.

Kanyotu sought the help of his brother-in-law Sam Ongeri, who informed him that the claims were not true. Prof Ongeri, now the Kisii senator, is married to Kanyotu’s sister.

The senator prides himself for saving Nyachae from possible torture and jail.  The key target of the smear campaign was Nyachae’s Sansora Bakery. In his memoir, Simeon Nyachae: Walking through the Corridors of Service, he gives an account of how he started the bread business in his 20s, with a small bakery in Nyanturago.

The bakery could make 16 loaves of bread a day. Nyachae says he used to hawk bread on a bicycle after he dropped out of school and started working at a posho mill owned by his father in the 1950s. It is this mill that later became a bakery.

Nyachae’s father, Musa Nyandusi, owned water and diesel operated flour mills known as Chitinga chia Musa. The chief enjoyed a virtual monopoly of the milling business in Abanyaribari, the largest clan in Kisii County.

As from the early 1980s, Sansora bread had become a popular brand in Kisii and parts of Nyanza, competing with renowned brand Elliots. With Nyachae becoming wealthy and powerful in government and a key player in Gusii politics, he faced an onslaught by so called “Four O” a group of politicians made up of Chris Obure, Zachary Onyonka, Andrew Omanga and David Onyancha. At one time, Onyonka established his own bakery to fight Sansora.

But crafty Nyachae was one step ahead. As the patron of an association of wheat growers and millers , he prevailed on the group not to supply wheat to Dr Onyonka.

The Four O’s vilified and ostracised Nyachae in a series of political campaign rallies across Gusii in 1987, with the first being held in Kebirigo market in West Mugirango.

Joined politics

The leaders accused Nyachae of seeking to plant political loyalists in various constituencies in the community for his alleged national political agenda including removing Moi’s government from power. 

A number of the politicians that Nyachae sponsored in the 1988 elections lost with Obure who had unsuccessful contested for MP since 1969 becoming the first MP for the newly created Bobasi constituency, winning unopposed after contentiously emerging tops in the infamous “mlolongo” Kanu party primaries.

Evidently, Nyachae’s intentions to join politics after leaving government had left many Kisii politicians and some top national leaders worried about his influence in Kenya’s political future. 

Away from government as from 1987, Nyachae’s businesses took a serious beating. In 1992, he made a return to the President Moi camp. However, the comeback came at the wrong time as, by this time, Moi was facing an onslaught from the opposition.

Not long after, Nyachae’s businesses continued to face hard times but this time not from the Moi government but from Kenyans who wanted Moi to go.

In the electioneering period of 1991 to 1993, there appeared widespread resistance to Sansora with its delivery vans vandalised and the entire business threatened. To survive the resistance, a witty Nyachae swiftly changed the business names and placed the bread factory and most of his businesses in the hands of Asians.

Soon after, Nyachae found himself back in government as a minister until 1999 when he resigned after being “demoted” from the powerful Ministry of Finance to that of Industrialisation.

Even when in government, Nyachae went on with developing his business empire believing that his wealth was due to hard work and business acumen and probably only to a minor degree to the position which he held

“Nyachae began his day early, worked through lunch, and kept to a rigid schedule of exercise. He was famous for the speed with which he gave written replies to memos... Nyachae believed in abstinence from alcohol and would not even drink coffee...”writes David Leonard in a seminar paper “The Secrets of African Managerial Success” published by the Institute of Development Studies in 1988.

Business interests

By the time of his death, Nyachae held considerable and substantial public and private interests in and outside Kenya, some of which he partnered with the Moi and Kenyatta families.

The Nyachaes are among the country’s largest cereal growers, competing with the likes of Farnie Kruger of Eldoret, Timau’s Martin Dyer, Hugo Wood of Narok and Nakuru’s Steve Rose.

The Nyachaes through their Sansora Group Ltd are arguably the largest indigenous cereal growers in the country.

He has interests in Credit Bank, NCBA Bank and I &M Bank. 

Credit Bank started in1986 as Credit Kenya Ltd, a non-banking financial institution, and became a fully-fledged commercial bank in 1995 after which he changed its name to Credit Bank. 

Nyachae was the chairman of the bank while his wife Grace is an executive director.
Grace is also the executive director of the family other business venture, Simbi Roses.
Simbi Roses, started in 1995, is located in Thika. 

It started as a small two-hectare farm situated in the middle of a large coffee plantation but has expanded and is now able to produce up to 200,000 stems per day for the international market, according to information contained in the firm’s website.

His family owns extensive properties, both residential and commercial, in almost all the major towns in the country.

They also have interests in the aviation sector.

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