Meet retired policeman who has threatened Uhuru’s presidency

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s second term has hitherto been seen as a foregone conclusion after the Opposition coalition indicated that it would not challenge his October 26 win.

However, a retired policeman has now emerged with the most significant threat to President Kenyatta’s victory.

John Harun Mwau on Monday filed the first petition that has directly challenged the Jubilee candidate’s win.

The former Kilome MP is a man who has had a contradictory relationship with the law, having started his career as a police offer.

While training in Kiganjo, Mwau emerged as a talented sharp shooter and was picked to participate in the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games.

He would later retire to become a politician and a business empire that has seen him rise to become one of Kenya’s wealthiest men.

The 69-year old politician is also a notorious litigant.

In 1992, after he unsuccessfully contested the Kenyan presidency, he filed a petition against President Daniel Moi, arguing that he was the only validly nominated candidate.

With only 6,499 votes, the businessman wanted to be declared president on grounds that the law specified that nomination papers should be a foolscap of 216mm x 343mm, while all the others presented an A4 paper of 21cm × 29.7cm. His case was thrown out on the basis of lacking merit.

In 2008, Mwau was elected Kilome MP after which then Prime Minister Raila Odinga picked him as an Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Transport.

The bearded politician would later resign in 2010 after he was adversely mentioned in a report table in Parliament, accusing him of being a drug trafficker. Incidentally, Odinga replaced him with then Kisauni MP Ali Hassan Joho who had been mentioned in the same damning report.

In 2011, then US President Barack Obama imposed economic sanctions on Mwau and another Kenyan businesswoman, in a list that had seven suspected international drug dealers from various countries. The ban effectively made it criminal for a US citizen or corporation to do business with the former legislator.

The man who was the pioneer Chair of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), would later defend himself from the allegations made him by the US government.

“The US government knows that I have interests in a chain of businesses, especially in supermarkets. They know that we have been expanding and growing. They want to stop this and have their own people take them over,” he stated during an interview with the Daily Nation.