A look at how Wanjigi's father changed agriculture in Kenya and brought wildlife to Kiambu

As attention shifts from Raila Odinga to NASA's financier, Jimmy Wangigi, Kenyans have been digging more and more into his family and coming up with information that very few were aware of.Below is a post from Ndicu Kuria's Facebook account that shows how Wangigi's father, former Cabinet minister James Maina Wanjigi, changed agriculture in Kenya and even introduced Murang'a residents to wildlife. If you like eating ngutas (macadamia nuts), did you know that the nuts were brought to Kenya in March 1970. A government official on a state visit to Hawaii was so impressed by the potential of the nuts that he decided to bypass plant importation rules and came back with half a kilo of the stuff.He donated these to the National Agricultural Research station in Kabete where they were turned to seedlings and formed the first batch to be donated to coffee farmers in Kiambu and Murang'a.A nice charitable piece of work which resulted, of course, into the said official owning a well known company that processes the nuts even today making billions a year.Oh...and yes, the official also came back from this trip with his friends in a company called Del Monte to do a bit of pineapple farming in Thika and a bit of sugar farming in Western. Of which the said official was one of 24 Kenyans who held 3% of Del Monte's shares.His name is James Maina Wanjigi.I do not think there is a single agricultural venture that took place in Kenya between 1968 and 1990 that the man did not have some association with.Tanneries? He was Bata's largest distributorFarmer's banks? He started Cooperative Bank and National BankKen Ren? He started itKenya Industrial Estate? He started itGrapes in Yatta? He founded KWALInsurance? He founded AON-MinetSACCOs? He started the two Murang'a SACCOs that own the properties on Tom Mboya and River RoadEducation? He founded Kamukunji Secondary/ Maina Wanjigi High and the current Murang'a Technical CollegeCharity? He started the SoS Village in the east of the cityAnd so on and so forth. An industrious man with an eye for opportunity if not a little bit of backdoor racketeering.A man given to pushing the boundaries, he once decided that Murang'a people needed to enjoy Kenya's wildlife but since they were busy farmers the animals would have to go meet Murang'a people rather than the other way round. So he organised for wild animals to be moved from the Nairobi Animal Orphanage to Kiria-ini stadium. Local humans paid to see the beasts and the collections were applied by Wanjigi to build the Gatango Water Scheme which now provides water to the people of Kiru and Kiria-ini.You know, the Kenyan story has been very poorly told by our national story tellers.