Laikipia Senator GG Kariuki is dead

Laikipia Senator and veteran politician Godfrey Gitahi Kariuki, famously known as G.G. Kariuki, is dead.

G.G. Kariuki died Friday, June 30 morning at a Nairobi hospital aged 79.

According to a close family member, the Senator was admitted at a city hospital after suffering some health complications.

The Laikipia Senator served as a Cabinet Minister in President Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi’s governments.

The late Senator was part of the first Parliament he served as a Member of Parliament of Laikipia-Nanyuki.

Later, he was re-elected to represent Laikipia West until 1983.

After enacting the Constitution of Kenya 2010, he was appointed Assistant Minister for Lands, Settlement and Physical Planning by President Mwai Kibaki.

As a long-serving Legislator, he was elected into the first National Assembly in May 1963 as Member representing, a constituency that consisted of the present-day Laikipia County.

When the constituency was split into two in 1970, he was elected to and continued to be re-elected until 1993 when he was nominated into Parliament and served for one term.

GG Kariuki served as the Minister for Internal Security and Provincial Administration during Presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Arap Moi’s era.

In 1983, he was moved to the Lands, Settlement and Physical Planning docket serving up to the end of the year.

He is renowned for spearheading the resettlement of the landless in Laikipia during the formative post-independence years.

He served in many other senior capacities, including Chairs of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations, and Member of the Parliamentary Service Commission.

He was also Chairman of KANU, Laikipia Branch, for a long time.