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Bloomberg
Mwai Kibaki, the two-term Kenyan president who fired up the economy yet saw his legacy tainted by election-related violence, has died. He was 90.
His death was announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta in a televised address. “Kibaki was a quintessential patriot, whose legacy of civic responsibility will continue to inspire generations of Kenyans long into the future,†Kenyatta said.
Kenya’s third post-independence leader, Kibaki served from 2002 to 2013. After succeeding Daniel Arap Moi, who had ruled the East African nation for 24 years, Kibaki set about rebuilding an economy beset by corruption and decaying infrastructure. He initiated projects such as Thika Superhighway, an eight-lane road linking Nairobi to central Kenya, and helped develop telecommunications, banking and power industries.
Those developments helped bolster Kenya’s annual economic growth rate to an average of 4.4% in 10 years through 2012, compared with 2.5% in the previous decade, World Bank data show.