An journalist for AFP news agency saw six charred bodies being removed from the wreckage. Another reporter at the scene says debris of the burnt-out police helicopter were strewn in the brush. Prime Minister Raila Odinga, speaking at the site, described the deaths as a "great tragedy", and promised a thorough investigation into the cause of the crash.
Leading politician. George Saitoti had been a key figure in Kenyan politics, holding a number of senior ministerial posts over the last 30 years and becoming the country's longest-serving vice-president.
The professor of mathematics joined Daniel arap Moi's government as a finance minister in , going on to become his vice-president in He briefly stepped down as education minister in over accusations he was involved in the Goldenberg financial scandal, but was reinstated when a Kenyan court ruled he should not be charged. After years as a senior member in the long-dominant Kanu party, Mr Saitoti joined the current president Mwai Kibaki's National Alliance of Kenya in Kenyan troops have been fighting al-Shabab in Somalia since they sent troops into the country last October.
The militants have killed several people in a string of grenade attacks in various parts of Kenya, including Nairobi. Mr Saitoti announced he would stand for the presidency last November. No date for the presidential election has so far been set. Mr Kibaki's mandate ends in January The last presidential election, in December , was followed by a wave of ethnic and political violence in which about 1, were killed.
The Kenyan students were, however, facing problems and Kenyatta sent Kimani wa Nyoike to start the African Students Service division within the World University Service to fundraise for the students and help them. Kimani wa Nyoike met Saitoti who had received a Wien international scholarships to study at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Kamau Ngotho reported on a conversation with Kimani wa Nyoike in [ 8 ] :- Once I had a conversation with retired politician Kimani wa Nyoike, who was in college in the United States together with Saitoti in early s.
He told me that Saitoti was a mystery even in their college days. But Saitoti was always a stranger to us," Nyoike told me. The retired politician also told me that Saitoti never liked anybody who knew his past near him.
John Kamau writes that Saitoti [ 4 ] Brandeis was only 13 years old by the time Saitoti arrived there. At Brandeis, Saitoti immersed himself into the university life and was one of the best in high jump.
Saitoti was awarded a B. He continued to win scholarships and was able to travel to England where he enrolled for an M. After successfully completing the degree at the University of Sussex, again a scholarship allowed him to continue to study for a doctorate at Warwick University in Coventry, England. His name on the thesis is George Kinuthia Kiarie Saitoti.
After the award of his Ph. He submitted the paper Loop spaces and K-theory to the Journal of the London Mathematical Society in July and it was published in Rather strangely, this paper lists Saitoti's thesis in the list of references but it does not appear to have a mention in the text of the paper. Further papers were published, one in each of the years , , and The paper is A note on the homology of a differential graded algebra. He held this position until Saitoti's career as a mathematician went well and he was promoted to associate professor and, in , to Head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Nairobi.
He did not concentrate wholly on mathematics, however, for he had a number of other positions. The Minister of Labour appointed him as the chairman of the Agricultural Wages Council on 3 November , a position he held for two years.
He was elected to the East African Legislative Assembly in , serving until He was appointed chair of the board of directors for the Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology in September He also acted as executive chairman at the Kenya Commercial Bank. John Kamau writes [ 4 ] :- Despite his growing public stature, the double cultural heritage appeared to bother Saitoti, gradually turning him into an introvert, according to friends.
He was like a man with no cultural identity. He spoke about harambee, a policy adopted by Jomo Kenyatta for community self-help projects, stressing its importance in the development strategy of Kenya.
There was, however, much concern about corruption, especially involving self-help projects, so Saitoti said:- As part of our effort to use resources more productively, we need greater accountability for harambee funds.
Documentation of the collections and project expenditures must be prepared in order to maintain public confidence in harambee. In he wrote A View from Africa in which he said:- This is a continent of million people, only a tiny fraction of whom are producing up to their potential. Africa's agriculture can grow a wide variety of tropical and even temperate crops, often at very high yields, and the possibility for research leading to improved productivity have hardly been touched.
Africa's land is rich in mineral wealth, much of it unexplored, and its rivers contain unexploited potential for power and irrigation. With good economic management, good world market conditions, and more patience than we can perhaps afford, African economies should be capable of producing far more output than at present and of noticeably improving the well-being of their people. In Saitoti participated in the general elections and won the Kajiado North parliamentary seat. The voting system used was heavily criticised as favouring the Kenya African National Union, and they were clearly reluctant to more to a more democratic model.
The Kenya African National Union now had two factions, one determined not to move towards full democracy, the other, led by Saitoti, in favour of change. Saitoti played a very clever role in keeping both sides happy. He turned out to be the longest serving Vice-President holding that position between May and January and again between April and August He delivered the Opening Address and gave the Concluding Remarks. The past year has been marked by extraordinary political and economic events, all of which have significant implications for the world economy.
Three of these developments stand out as particularly important at this juncture. These three developments were the fall of the Berlin wall, which he strongly welcomed, the progress towards a united Europe, of which he said "history is being made," and developments in the Middle East which would have an "adverse impact on the world economy.
The murder has never been solved but theories point to either a family feud or a political assassination. Saitoti claimed that attempts were made on his life around the same time. The Goldenberg Scheme was an export promotion scheme in which anyone who exported gold or diamonds could claim 35 per cent of their value as a state subsidy.
Given Saitoti's stand against corruption it is hard to believe he set this up so that he and his fellow politicians could make personal fortunes. Although the Goldenberg scandal would continue to make his life difficult, he always denied involvement in the scheme and he managed to avoid being charged with any offence. Saitoti gave a speech on the occasion of the World Population Day celebrations on 11 July He had many opponents in parliament and after the elections the President did not appoint him as Vice-President.
In he gave the keynote speech Strengthening mathematics and computer science and research in Kenyan Universities.
In he published the book The challenges of economic and institutional reforms in Africa. In it he argued as follows:- Throughout the continent, post-independence public policies discriminated against historically marginalized and excluded groups e. Although these perverse policies generated a significant amount of benefits and privileges for the ruling elites and enhanced their ability to monopolize political power, they imposed significant costs on the poor.
It is clear that such arguments would not make Saitoti popular with fellow members of the government. After the Kenya African National Union merged with another party in and changes were made, including the introduction of four Vice-Presidents, Saitoti lost his position. He said at the time:- There comes a time when the nation is much more important than an individual. He certainly feared for his safety as Kamau Ngotho reports in [ 8 ] :- [ I was in ] a high-end hotel in Mombasa in
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