George Saitoti

George Musengi Saitoti, E.G.H. (3 August 1945 – 10 June 2012) was a Kenyan politician, businessman and American- and British-trained economist, mathematician and development policy thinker.

George Saitoti was born on 3 August 1945 and brought up in Maasailand, where he spent his childhood herding cattle in line with the Masai culture, and attending school.

He attended Ololua Primary School, Kajiado where he acquired his basic education in the 1950s.

Between 1960 and 1963, he secured a place at Mang'u High School in Thika where he attained his high school education.

He joined the ranks of Mang'u High School's highly decorated alumni including Kenya's third President, Mwai Kibaki, former Vice-President Moody Awori, Catholic Archbishop Ndingi Mwana-a-Nzeki, the late Environment Minister John Michuki, the late Trade Unionist and former Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Tom Mboya, and late Cardinal Maurice Michael Otunga.

Saitoti was one of the recipients of the Kennedy Airlift scholarships in 1963 at the age of 18.

This was a scholarship program started by Tom Mboya and William X. Scheinmann and supported by the John F. Kennedy foundation and the African American Students Association to address the educational needs of newly independent Kenya.

Through this program, hundreds of East Africans studied in the United States of America and Canada.

Saitoti studied at Brandeis University between 1963 and 1967 where he was a mathematician.

During his time there, he was on the Wien Scholarship, specialising in Mathematics and Economics.

His colleagues at the time remember that he enjoyed spending time in Cholmondeleys (the coffeehouse in the Castle) and excelled at high jump, ranking as one of the best in New England.

He enrolled for his doctoral studies at the University of Warwick where he acquired his PhD in mathematics in 1972; writing his dissertation under the supervision of professor Luke Hodgkin in the area of algebraic topology under the topic: Mod-2 K-Theory of the Second Iterated Loop Space on a Sphere.

Upon his graduation, Saitoti returned to Kenya in 1972, commencing a career as a Mathematics lecturer at the University of Nairobi.

One of his contributions was the institutionalisation of Mathematics as a discipline in Africa.

On 3 November 1972, the Minister of Labour appointed him as the chairman of the Agricultural Wages Council (AWC).

From 1974 to 1977, he represented Kenya in the defunct (since-revived) East African Community as a member of the East African Legislative Assembly.

As a mathematician, Saitoti served as Head of the Mathematics Department at the University of Nairobi, pioneered the founding of the African Mathematical Union and served as its vice-president from 1976 to 1979.

During the first Pan-African Conference of Mathematicians held in Rabat, Morocco, in 1976, Saitoti was involved in the creation of the African Mathematical Union (AMU).

He was elected the AMU's vice-president, a post which he held on up to 1979.

On 4 September 1979, the Minister for Tourism and Wildlife, John Ogutu, also appointed him as a committee member of the Natural Sciences Advisory Research Committee (TNSARC) chaired by professor S. O. Wandiga.

His book The Challenges of Economic and Institutional Reforms in Africa influenced practical policy directions on an array of areas during the turbulent 1980s and 1990s.

Saitoti joined politics as a nominated Member of Parliament and Minister for Finance in 1983, rising to become Kenya's longest-serving Vice-President, a proficient Minister for education, Internal Security and Provincial Administration and Foreign Affairs.

By 1983, Saitoti's academic career was on the rise as associate professor and Head of the Mathematics Department.

Outside the academy, Saitoti received several public appointments.

In September 1983, he was appointed chairperson of the board of directors for the Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology.

He also served in other public capacities as chairman of Mumias Sugar Company and the Kenya Commercial Bank.

Top decision-makers in government had recognised Saitoti as a policy thinker and technocrat, of whom the KANU desperately needed to fix its institutions, politics and the economy.

His seminal book, The Challenges of Economic and Institutional Reforms in Africa was widely praised by leading officials as providing practical policy proposals to deal with the various challenges facing Kenya and Africa.

The book drew from Saitoti's experience as a seasoned scholar, consultant and experienced policy-maker/thinker, presenting a rigorous and multidisciplinary analysis of strategies for poverty alleviation, sustainable development, poverty reduction, combating HIV/AIDS and peace diplomacy.

Saitoti also emphasised the importance of institutional reforms and sound public policies to sustainable economic growth in Africa.

Long before joining mainstream politics, Saitoti had a stint in the legislative duties.

In 1988, Saitoti received the first Brandeis Alumni Achievement Award, the highest honour the university bestows upon its graduates.

Saitoti later moved to the United Kingdom where he acquired a Master of Science (MSc) degree in mathematics from the University of Sussex, Brighton.

As an economist, Saitoti served as the Executive Chairman of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1990–91, and as President of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States in 1999–2000, at the crucial phase of re-negotiating the new development partnership agreement to replace the expired Lomé Convention between the ACP bloc and the European Union (EU).

Few recognise him as a "reformist", but his recommendations as the Chair of the KANU Review Committee, popularly known as the "Saitoti Committee" in 1990–91, opened KANU to internal changes and set the stage for the repeal of Section 2A and Kenya's return to pluralist democracy.

Saitoti left KANU and joined the opposition, becoming a kingpin figure in the negotiations that led to the "NARC Revolution" in 2002.

As Minister for Internal Security and Provincial Administration, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and key member of the National Security Advisory Committee (NSAC), he later worked closely with the national Ministry of Defence to see through the Operation Linda Nchi against the Al-Shabaab insurgent group.

In addition, rival factions had for decades invoked the infamous Goldenberg fraud to knock Saitoti out of politics, but the legal courts cleared him of the scandal in July 2006.

Saitoti's dual heritage as a Maasai with Kikuyu family members predisposed him to a pan-Kenyan vision, but also denied him a strong ethnic base unlike his competitors.

Saitoti was running as a candidate to succeed President Mwai Kibaki when he died in a helicopter crash in 2012.