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So this may not be current political news, but with recent world leadership either fighting to stay out of prison or rattling their sabres at each other, it might be necessary to do a little throwback to a time when one president’s biggest worry was refuting ‘side chick’ rumours. And staying in the good graces of his wife.

Let’s take a step back to the glorious pre-pandemic year of 2009 when Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki called local journalists to State House to address the most serious of matters – his own rumoured polygamy.

Rumours of a second wife had caused the president to address the issues, under the watchful eyes of his vat nie kak nie wife, Lucy. Local media frequently suggested that Kibaki, 77, had a second wife, Mary Wambui, who was usually referred to as a “political activist” in the president’s party, and a daughter called Winnie.

The president’s real wife likely told the poor guy to shut those rumours down once and for all, and judging by the TikTok fame the press conference has received lately, the man didn’t look like he had much choice.

Lucy Kibaki was no first lady to be messed with and once stormed into the office of a local newspaper in the middle of the night and began klapping a photographer. After accusing the state television network of ‘tormenting her’, the lady was later quoted as saying “I nearly came to your studio last night to attack you like I did with the Nation.”

She was ungovernable, unapproachable and impossible. She was the most outspoken First Lady on the continent and interrupted and overruled him publicly. She had no qualms giving the impression that she was co-President. If President Kibaki was uncomfortable with her conduct, he lacked the power or the courage to say so, or show his displeasure.

Sadly, Lucy Kibaki passed away in 2016. At the time, The Guardian described her as “Africa’s most violent First Lady.”

Any doubts about her ability to ‘shut sh*t down’ are best addressed by the video on TikTok:

@nat0ga any questions please? Lucy had enough 😂🤣💀 In 2004, the media reported that Kenya’s president Kibaki had a second spouse, whom he allegedly married under customary law, Mary Wambui, and a daughter, Wangui Mwai. State House in response released an unsigned statement that Kibaki’s only immediate family at the time was his then wife, Lucy, and their four children.[121] In 2009, Kibaki, with Lucy in close attendance, held an odd press conference to re-state publicly that he only had one wife.The matter of Kibaki’s alleged mistress, and his wife’s unusually dramatic public reactions therein, provided an embarrassing side-show during his presidency, with the Washington Post. terming the entire scandal as a “new Kenyan soap opera”. Ms. Wambui, the rather popular “other woman”, who enjoyed the state trappings of a presidential spouse and became a powerful and wealthy business-woman during the Kibaki Presidency, frequently drove Lucy into episodes of highly embarrassing very publicly displayed rage. #kenya#kenyatiktok #sidechick #fyp ♬ original sound – NatGa

I can think of a few Presidents that could do with a first lady who can stare down a room of media vultures like that. Any questions?

[source:guardian]