Jomo Kenyatta was not a particularly clever or gifted man. He rose to the presidency of Kenya by a confluence of factors, none of which had anything to do with organizational ability, academic brilliance or hard work.
His 7-year stint in detention from 1953 -1960 has been used to justify all his later misdeeds and his penchant for trying to airbrush entire segments of our history from the National consciousness.
It is also used to justify his murderous reign and the assassination of political opponents.
President Yoweri K. Museveni, apparently much-loved in Kenya, has said similar things of his 36 years in power in neighboring Uganda, often quoted as having said that “you would rather play around with his wife (Janet) than play around with (his) power.
Old man Jomo, because he had a gift of the gab, was chosen to travel to England to petition the Queen directly on Kikuyu Land interests which had been trampled underfoot by the colonial Government in Kenya.
Kikuyu peasants, who comprised the majority of the membership of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) raised the monies required for his travel and upkeep in England, where he was expected to front their interests. He left for England at the back-end of the year 1929.
Jomo, stayed for a total of 15 years in England except for a brief return to Kenya in the early 1930s, and only returned at the end of the 2ndWorld War.
In the 15 years in England, Jomo was the 1930s equivalent of a Ben-10, a younger man kept by white women, and who sometimes paid for his upkeep. Oftentimes though, he lived in penury, constantly late for rent payments, and the women who could have “kept” him were hamstrung by the ravages of the 2nd World War on England.
Jomo Kenyatta in Manchester in this 1945 photo.
One of his first acts as President was to invite his former landlord in England to Kenya, ostensibly to show him how much he had moved up in the World. The Landlord appeared to have a bland look on his face in pictures of their interactions, probably wondering what idiocy his former tenant was up to.
In any event, the Jomo Kenyatta presidency quickly went off-rail, and it turned out to be Africa’s prime example of a lootocracy.
Land that had been re-acquired from colonial settlers with a grant from the British Government of £20 million was in turn re-acquired for free by Jomo and his henchmen. Vast coffee and tea farms were taken from arm-twisted colonial farmers and taken over by an even more clueless and acquisitive new African bourgeois.
Jomo’s 3rd wife and mother to immediate former (4th) Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also participated in this massive acquisition of land on one hand and was reported by the CIA to have had a direct hand in the killing of millions of Elephant and Rhino for their tusks (ivory) and horn.
She and her step-daughter Margaret (now deceased) are believed to have single-handedly led to the decimation of the Elephant and Rhino population in Kenya.
Up to this point, you begin to get the picture, that Jomo Kenyatta, the 1st generation of the Kenyatta family knows only how to take.
The second generation of this extended Kenyatta family did not do much better. For 35 years after the death of their patriarch, the majority of them thrived on the sale of those acquired land holdings, and most went off on decades-long alcohol binges until many were financially struggling.
For some reason, these buggers could not shake off the need for a 2nd bite at the Kenyan presidency, needing it the same way that wild animals need a watering hole or oasis to refresh.
The Children of Jomo Kenyatta’s 3rd wife, Ngina Kenyatta, had done passably well though. They had sold off part of the acquired land holdings and invested in the key sectors of the economy including banking, insurance, farming, and tourism, and still retained a substantial amounts of land in arable areas nonetheless.
It was one of her Children, 2nd-born Uhuru M. Kenyatta that would clinch the Kenyan Presidency in 2013, through a confluence of eerily lucky factors. He came from being a rank outsider, complete with an International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment, to being voted in one of the highest voter turnout elections in Kenyan history.
The arrival of Uhuru Kenyatta to the helm of Kenya heralded the darkest economic period in its history. In the first 5 year term of this presidency, 30% of Kenyans fell into abject poverty due to crazy economic policies.
The story is much simpler though, like kids entering a candy store, Uhuru Kenyatta took over the presidency of a country with a robust economy, minimal debt and working systems. He then went ahead to plunder the economy along with the political elite of Kenya, hoping somehow that the Kenyan economy is a self-replenishing well.
Uhuru Kenyatta at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.
During that time, by leveraging the Presidency, Uhuru Kenyatta allowed his family and friends to raid public coffers, amend laws to suit themselves, and in some extreme cases, hostile takeover of existing businesses.
The Kenyatta brood used a gazette notice to sidestep a Ksh. 350 million excise stamp duty on their acquisition of the shares of NIC Bank. In another case, they caused the amendment of the Sports Act 2013 to allow their elder sister Kristina W. Pratt an opportunity to raid the Sports Fund for several Billion shillings, on the pretext that she needed to clear medical containers at the Port of Mombasa, but which today still lie at the NYS Training Institute in Mombasa.
However, it was the unprecedented and meteoric rise of the Sportpesa Sports betting brand that caught the eye of the ravenous Kenyatta’s, after their revenues hit an unprecedented Ksh. 180 Billion (USD1.8 Billion) in 2017.
This made Sportpesa (through its mother company Pevans (EA) Ltd) the 2nd most valuable company in Kenya after the behemoth, Safaricom (k) Ltd.
And it was easy to find this information because the laws of betting and gaming are quite tight, meaning that revenues are watched closely by tax authorities, and those taxes are then pegged on each individual bet placed.
The Directors of Pevans (EA) Ltd erroneously believed that they had political and personal allies in the Kenyan Presidency of Uhuru Kenyatta. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
This misguided belief was occasioned by the fact that one of their Directors and major shareholders Paul Ndungu had been the campaign fundraising Chairman of both the 2013 and 2017 Presidential bid committees and Chairman of the ultra-influential Mt. Kenya Foundation.
Their late Chairman, former MP and Nairobi Mayor Dick Wathika had also been an ally of Uhuru Kenyatta for years, and instrumental in setting up the company on one hand and then rallying various bigshots to put their money into a nascent idea.
Wathika would collapse and die under mysterious circumstances in late 2015 leaving his shares in the company to his wife Asenath Wacera. Unfortunately, the absence of this mercurial man and the political operator would be used by others to try and disenfranchise Asenath Wacera in one of the goriest of ways, which widow’s face.
Former Nairobi Mayor Dick Wathika, suspected to have been murdered by Bulgaria shareholders of Sportpesa.
Funny though, nobody attempted to disenfranchise Ngina Kenyatta for the years that she has been a widow following the death of her husband Jomo in 1978, yet her children would have zero compunction about doing it to another.
Dick Wathika’s death was controversial because he had just come from a meeting with his Bulgarian partners at Finix Casino when he collapsed and died. The meeting was to iron out differences between him and these so-called partners, led by casino operator Gerassim Nikolov.
There is the belief in many circles that Wathika had apparently served his purpose for these Bulgarians, and they believed that he could therefore be tossed out.
Wathika had modeled himself as an ally of the shadowy Bulgarians since the mid-00s when as Mayor of Nairobi he had ordered the confiscation of all the bright yellow Kenya Charity Sweepstake kiosks by the Nairobi City Council and had them replaced with the Orange & Blue kiosks of Toto 6/49.
Toto 6/49 was a hugely successful gaming operation that was run by Nikolov in partnership with various media houses for an extended period in the 00s.
The success of the Toto 6/49 was aided by Wathika for the physical outlets, whose revenues were partly used to underwrite the initial costs for acquiring and setting up the physical and technology infrastructure for Sportpesa.
However, with Wathika dead and his shares in Pevans (EA) Ltd shifting to Asenath would see another battlefront opened that would pit Asenath Wacera and Paul Ndungu on the one hand versus Nikolov and another new entrant into the business, the current MP for Kasarani constituency –Ronald Kimwiko Karauri, on the other hand.
But back to the betrayal, Kenyatta-style.
In 2019, Ndungu would invite President Uhuru Kenyatta’s younger brother (Muhoho Kenyatta) to the prestige match between Everton FC and Kariobangi Sharks at the MISC Kasarani in what was a red letter day for Sportpesa, who were the shirt and betting partners for Everton FC which has for decades anchored in the prestigious English Premier League.
It was another piece of marketing genius that Sportpesa had managed to pull out of the hat.
Muhoho Kenyatta, seated next to Paul Ndungu and his relative Peter Kihanya could not understand how these upstarts (Pevans EA Ltd) had managed to pull off such a financial and marketing coup in 4 short years, yet he had been supporting sports through his own Brookside brand for more than 15 years.
He even had the inside track on sports betting similarly 15 years before and let the opportunity slide away.
He was therefore mad at himself on the one hand, and at the situation, on the other hand.
But therein the seeds of the most brazen hostile takeover in the country were planted.
In December 2020, a license granted to a company by the name Milestone Gaming Ltd was withdrawn by the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) in Kenya.
From Left: Uhuru’s brother Muhoho Kenyatta, Sport Pesa director Paul Ndungu and Uhuru’s cousin Peter Kihanya.
One of the familiar faces behind Milestone was Ronald Karauri, the CEO and the bonafide face of the Sportpesa brand. He had been summoned to appear before the BCLB to explain an anomaly in the shareholding structure of Milestones Gaming Ltd, which had apparently taken over the Sportpesa brand and its shortcodes/MPESA Paybills/Domains and USSDs.
Apparently, the ownership of Sportpesa had quietly transitioned from its previous owner Pevans (EA) Ltd to Milestone Gaming Ltd. It was not a change of name in the company, but rather an absolute change over from one company to the other.
In the process of the changeover, the new company (Milestone Gaming Ltd) had completely left out some key owners of Pevans (EA) Ltd, namely Asenath Wacera (widow to the late Dick Wathika – founder and Chairman) and Paul Ndungu (Billionaire investor by invitation).
So who were the shareholders of Milestone Gaming Ltd?
Initial filings with BCLB showed that the shareholders of MGL were Nob Five Ltd with 99.5% shares and Wilson Ngatia Karunguru with 0.5% shares.
Nob Five was then apparently owned by Selenium Ltd (96%) and the remainder 4% shares held by Jackline Nyambura Kungu.
Selenium Ltd was then owned by Pevans (EA) Ltd Chairman Francis Kiarie (43%) and Ronald Karauri (57%) who had 300 and 400 shares issued to them out of 10,000 shares available.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we learn to deceive…
Milestone Gaming Ltd had earlier gone to court seeking a Judicial Review of an earlier decision by BCLB to bar it from using the name Sportpesa, its domains, shortcodes, and Paybill number.
Previously, Ronald Karauri and Francis Kiarie owned a mere 7% and 1% shares in Pevans (EA) Ltd, making them minority shareholders in the company that owned Sportpesa.
THIEF: Ronald Karauri together with members of the Kenyatta family conspired to dispossess Sport Pesa from its original shareholders.
In comparison, Asenath Wacera owned 21% shares of Pevans (EA) Ltd while Paul Ndungu owned 17% shares, giving them a combined 38% stake in the company that owned the Sportpesa brand.
Two Bulgarian Directors, Gerassim Nikolov and Gene Grand who owned substantial shares in the company were deported by Government in 2019 for criminal activity.
In a classic case of hop-skip-jump, these two posers (Karauri and Kiarie) were now the majority shareholders in a company that owned majority shareholding in MGL and had transferred Sportpesa over to themselves in the process.
However, the BCLB license was issued to MGL through its then Director, James Muigai Ngengi, a cousin to President Uhuru Kenyatta.
James Muigai Ngengi alias Jahmay is a well-known notorious character in Nairobi social circles, as the owner of “The Hood” restaurant which is situated somewhere behind Chaka Place in Hurlingham.
Ronald Karauri, who presented himself before the BCLB to answer to the claims of surreptitiously changing the shareholding structure of MGL without informing the Board, acceded to this, despite it being against the BCLB Act.
MGL had been formed on 24th September 2017 and its registered offices were at The Chancery on Valley Road, where the Kenyatta family has offices for the family business – Enke Investments Ltd.
The formation of this company coincided with the increase in Betting tax from 7.5% to 35% as was proposed and rammed through by President Kenyatta that year.
However, in June 2020, Parliament quietly reduced the betting tax further, from the then 20% to its original 7.5%.
Barely a week after these proposals had been assented to by President Kenyatta, MGL held a board meeting where shareholders James Muigai Ngengi and Peter Kihanya (relatives of President Uhuru Kenyatta) transferred their shares in the company to Ronald Karauri and Francis Kiarie in anticipation of the 2020/2021betting season which was imminent.
In this case, it is entirely possible that the members of the Kenyatta family had only transferred the shares to the other two gentlemen to hold in trust, as is the norm in such transactions.
BCLB issued the gaming license to MGL on 26th October 2020 and on the 30th of October 2020, MGL notified BCLB that it would commence operations and henceforth use the name Sportpesa, its shortcodes, domains, USSDs, and Paybill numbers.
The first sign of Kenyatta’s interest in Sportpesa was in 2018 when during the Tax fight with KRA, who accused Sportpesa of quietly moving Billions to a UK-based subsidiary in order to evade taxes, a close relative of Kenyatta’s – Peter Kihanya- approached Sportpesa with an offer to use his Kenyatta heritage to bulldoze KRA into submission.
Bulgarian Director Nikolov offered and gave him 3% shares and a board seat, and he began to attend board meetings despite protests from other Directors who were aware of his criminal activities in the past.
Bulgarian director of Sport Pesa Gerassim Nikolov
He also acquired shares in Sportpesa Global Holdings (which owns Sportpesa non-Kenyan betting companies in Tanzania, South Africa, Italy, and Russia) and another Sportpesa Holdings Ltd registered in the Isle of Mann.
It is believed that the 9,300 unissued shares in Selenium are owned by the Kenyatta’s via proxy making them an undeclared beneficial owner of the company.
In the mix is also Kimani Kungu, brother to the cock-eyed Capt Kungu who kept popping up in the news in the run-up to the elections in 2022.
LEFT: Captain Kimani Kungu whose brother is mentioned in the hostile takeover of Sportpesa
Kimani’s shares in Nob Five Ltd were held in trust by his US-based sister Jackline Nyambura Kungu.
In retrospect, considering the Kenyatta penchant of taking what they desire, it was only going to be a matter of time before they made a beeline for the Sportpesa.
