The Boys’ Club: Playground of pleasure and profit, pimps and players!

Even President Uhuru Kenyatta has his own- St Mary’s alumni, childhood buddies and business Kahunas

By Shifa Mwihaki

Contributing writer/Essayist

So now comedian Jalang’o has confessed his Boys’ Club was not a House of Lungula as Kenyans now believe.  The Boys had rented an apartment where they let their hair and beards down after assisting Jalang’o with shoots for his You Tube channel. The Boys’ Club had a WhatsApp group which was where unga ulizidi maji. One of the boys had an FBI Mama. She came across raunchy messages suggesting the Boys’ Club had sessions of breaking ‘a certain commandment’, shaking different ovaries before doing a FIFA ranking on who was bending the most petticoats.

Madam FBI forwarded screenshots to herself before confronting the dude. For maximum damage, she leaked them on social media and hence the current hullabaloo about Jalang’o and his Boys Club. Now there is even a sex tape doing the viral rounds since the Boys agreed to record sessions as proof.

But Jalang’o has since denied the charges. The Boys’ Club, he mouthed, comprised childhood and school buddies, and has existed for ages as an investment group and the reason it was formed. In any case, argues Jalang’o, in male WhatsApp groups “chats about women and money can never miss. People have blown this out of proportion and we are totally broken.”

Indeed, Boys’ Clubs have always existed for pleasure and profit. Mostly, members are either in the same elite class, are an alumni, in a chama or are childhood pals.

‘UK’ often meets them for a weekend of carousal to size up the virtues of a Glenlivet

Even President Uhuru Kenyatta has his own  Boys’ Club.

 It is majorly for cutting down bottles of whiskey and comprises alumni of St Mary’s School, childhood buddies and business moguls in real coin. After he’s done purging his Deputy President, ‘UK’ often meets them for a weekend of carousal to size up the virtues of a Glenlivet, puffing at cancer sticks. Majority of members operate in the shadows. Zero online presence. No Facebook photos, no nothing.

Though he’s now confined to swilling at State House Nairobi, Uhuru had a Presidential watering hole for letting his graying hair down away from prying eyes at the House on the Hill. So who are the member’s of his Boys’ Club?

 Well, most are childhood friends made when his Old Guy, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, was Kenya’s first president. Most are from Nairobi or Mombasa, not his shags in Ichaweri, Gatundu.

Like former Kiambu governor, William Kabogo. He is seven month older than Uhuru and both spent their childhood playing at State House Mombasa. See, Kabogo senior was a quotable civil servant and a close confidant of Jomo. Kabogo still lives in Nyali.

So, Uhuru’s Boys’ Club has members from the lower end of the food chain. Most are wealthy, successful, can do without presidential favours.

Shrugging to 56, Bootsy is Uhuru’s age mate and brings to the table knowledge of aviation

Like Captain Bootsy Mutiso, a pilot, a business mogul who runs an aircraft service at Wilson Airport, high end fashion house, Dolce Cavallo at Dusit Complex, 14 Riverside Drive, Nairobi.  

Bootsy, a race horse owner, wed lawyer Sheila Murugi, daughter of the late Cabinet Minister John Michuki at Windsor Golf and Country Club on Valentine’s Day in 2004 with President Mwai Kibaki in attendance. Shrugging to 56, Bootsy is almost Uhuru’s age mate and brings to the table knowledge of aviation in which the Kenyattas have interests. Then choppers used by most politicians are sourced from Bootsy’s Flex Air Charters.

The other member of Uhuru’s Boys Club is Maluki Mwendwa son of Kenya’s first homespun Chief Justice, Kitili Mwendwa.

Kitili’s wife, Nyiva Mwendwa, was the groomer of First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta after Kenya’s independence. Back then, most wives of politicians were rural women, but suddenly they had to meet dignitaries, attend balls. Nyiva was tasked with ensuring Mama Ngina discarded Calico dresses on her way to becoming Kenya’s first woman cabinet minister.

Maluki brings political capital and childhood memories to Uhuru’s Boys’ Club

So, Maluki played with Uhuru when his mother taught Mama Ngina fashion ropes and table manners. The Mwendwas, like the Kenyattas, have politicians in the family: Kyale, Nyiva and the late Ngala Mwendwa-who was in Jomo Kenyatta’s first Cabinet.

Maluki thus brings political capital and childhood memories to Uhuru’s Boys’ Club that also comprises other childhood pals; Waiyaki Munyua, son of the late Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Munyua Waiyaki and Wainaina Kinyanjui ‘Mutaratara’.

Wainaina’s father was a police boss in Jomo Kenyatta’s government before branching off into serious business ventures whose windfall provides election funding-which is where businessmen are useful in his Boys’ Club.

 Like Peter Kinyanjui aka Damco and Eric Mungai who bankrolled his first presidential bid in 2002. Mungai was then the right hand man before Njee Muturi, fellow alumni from St Mary’s, took over as his Personal Assistant.

Uhuru’s Boys’ Club has architect Joe Karago whose wife, Sally Karago, dresses First Lady Margaret Kenyatta

Uhuru’s Boys’ Club also has architect Joe Karago whose wife, Sally Karago, a fashion designer dresses Mama Ngina Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta.

Joe Karago was in another Boys’ Club, golfing buddies from Muthaiga, who transformed their chama to what is today the the Nairobi Securities Exchange listed, Transcentury Ltd. But its fortunes has nosed south since Mwai Kibaki retired as president in 2013. Financiers of Transcentury, like former KRA boss Michael Waweru, were members of Kibaki’s Boys’ Club.

Anyway, Uhuru’s Boys’ Club has also expanded to include wealthy businessmen with no political connections from his childhood. Like Richard Ngatia, owner of Galileos and chair, Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Ngatia, who made his millions selling condoms, is sent to test the waters, where the Kenyattas have foreign interests. He is today a permanent fixture of the presidential entourage.   

Uhuru’s Boys’ Club accords its few members the privilege of telling him he has forgotten to zip up after taking a leak. 

The Boy’s Club, are thus private, secretive. Besides politics, they also exist in business.

A Boy’s club is small in number, hard to penetrate, but with massive soft power to move socio-political and economic rivers in Deep State

They gained currency with the death of Safaricom boss Bob Collymore in July 1, 2019 when his Boys’ Club was unveiled: the hand-picked members commanded wealth, power and prestige. 

A Boy’s Club is small, hard to penetrate, but with massive soft power to move socio-political and economic rivers in Deep State-what DP William Ruto calls “the system.” 

That means meeting to chew miraa, take long road drives, swap mushene or cut low-life pints like Jalango, hardly constitutes a Boys’ Club in its strictest meaning.

Check out who was in Collymore’s Boys’ Club: Joshua Oigara, CEO KCB Group. In four years to 2020, he has trousered Sh1 billion in salary, perks and bonuses. He was among those who took Collymore for ruracio negotiations, the Best Man during his civil wedding to Wambui Kamiru in 2016. 

Then there was Gambian-born Lamin Manjang, former CEO of Stanchart Kenya but now in Lagos, Peter Kenneth, former presidential aspirant and MP for Gatanga who recently sold a controlling stake in his Mayfair bank for Sh3.7 billion.

Collymore’s Boy’s Club also had Aly-Khan Satchu, stock market trader, Patrick Quarcoo, shareholder at Radio Africa Group and Bharat Thakrar, the founder CEO of WPP Scangroup, one of Africa’s largest integrated marketing services conglomerate where he cusps a Sh2 billion stake. The boys nicknamed Thakrar, ‘Billionaire.’ Being a Hindu, he was tasked with Collymore’s cremation a day after his death. Nic Hailey, the British High Commissioner to Kenya, was an Honorary Member meaning television anchor, Jeff Koinange, was the poorest member, seeing as it is, he was facing auctioneers the other day.

These Uber-rich boys met at Collymore’s home in Kitisuru, Nairobi most Tuesdays

Why did Collymore, whom Jeff called ‘Kihara’ pick just these boys?

Well, their tentacles spread into finance, insurance, equities, advertising, diplomacy and media meaning its easy to open political doors,  acquire business insights, influence public opinion. Bob used them as the springboard of “bouncing off ideas.”

Then there are the networks. Like Hailey’s. He once oversaw all UK policy in 48 countries in Africa, translating into important contacts when Peter Kenneth went to open branches of Mayfair Insurance in DR Congo.  

 These Uber-rich boys met at Collymore’s home in Kitisuru, Nairobi most Tuesdays for a bottle of whiskey costing the price of a 10 year old Demio.

Through the Boys’ Club, WPP Scangroup got advertising business for Safaricom while Jeff Koinange hosted all of them in his JKL Show on Citizen. Free publicity.  Manjang was a guest on Satchu’s YouTube Channel. Satchu has a column in Quarcoo’s The Star newspaper.  Very symbiotic. They also went for chopper rides to Lamu, clubbing and shopping in London and Jo’burg.

Sociologists have long told us that at a certain socio-economic class, a person acquires a differentiated mindset and an exclusive Boy’s Club merely extends the class-bound prerogatives of money and power peculiar to members.