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LENA MOI
By all accounts Mrs Lena Moi, who was at her death in July last year eulogised as a hard working, humble, devoted Christian, had difficulty adjusting to public life.
It is thought that her problems with being in the limelight were part of the problem that led to the break-down of her marriage to former President Daniel arap Moi.
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Lena Moi . | During the period that she was still married to Mr Moi, Lena was often forced to be in the news either by his side as the devoted wife, or in her own right as a mother, teacher and women's leader.
Once they parted, however, Mrs Moi spent most of her later life a recluse.
People who knew Mrs Moi during her marriage to the then vice-president often speak of her being moody and intolerant of lifestyles that were not strictly adherent to the ideals found in the religious teachings she had grown up with.
When in 1940 the missionary Paul Barnett, whose family lent its name to the area now known as Kabarnet, returned to Kenya after theological studies abroad, one of his first official duties as a minister in the Africa Inland Church, was to baptise Helena, the third daughter of the well-to-do Bomett family. Helena, later just known as Lena, was to become a primary school teacher and Mr Daniel arap Moi's wife.
Mr Barnett can therefore be said to be some sort of authority on the lady.
Nearly 50 years later while speaking to Mr Moi's biographer, Andrew Morton, he commented on their 1974 divorce with the words: "It was for the best that they parted."
In Morton's book, Moi: The Making of an African Statesman, the pressures that led to the parting of Mr and Mrs Moi are referred to in a sketchy manner.
Family friends told Morton that the final break-up came soon after Mrs Moi refused to dance with Mzee Kenyatta during a social event, but pictures of Lena dancing with Kenyatta exist, thus raising doubts about these claims.
Another theory raised in the book suggests: "The hectic years spent criss-crossing the country in support of Kenyatta, coupled with Lena’s reluctance to immerse herself in the political world, finally became too heavy a burden."
In the end, the Mois kept their private lives quiet and very little came out about the divorce case though it is known one of the grounds was adultery.
Despite the parting though, Mrs Moi continued to live in the family home at Kabimoi, then in Baringo District. There were occassional whispers that she was a virtual prisoner.
In the run-up to the 2002 elections, Moi's eldest son, Jonathan, launched a campaign for the Eldama Ravine Parliamentary seat with a curious platform of "family values", a direct reference to the failed marriage between his parents. Curiously, revealed Morton, Lena kept "a room at the house as a shrine to her former husband, believing that when Moi finally sets aside the cares of high office, he will return to her."
WINNIE MANDELA
When in February 1990, Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison, his long suffering second wife Winnie walked by his side as the world watched his first steps to freedom after nearly 30 years in jail.
Gradually, however, relations between them cooled, as Winnie's turbulent life and her affairs with young men tried Mandela's patience.
In 1991 Winnie Mandela was charged with the assault and kidnapping of an ANC activist, Stompei. Initially convicted and given six years in jail, Mrs Mandela appealed and had the sentence reduced to a fine.
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Winnie Mandela . | In 1992 Nelson Mandela, tired of his wife's political and personal excesses, announced that he and Winnie were to separate. They eventually divorced in 1996.
Mrs Mandela, or Mrs Madikizela-Mandela as she became known after her divorce, was now extremely unwelcome at the top table of the governing African National Congress. She however, retained a huge following among the rank and file by appealing to the radicals and to those who felt that progress towards equality was still too slow.
Mr Mandela later married Graca Machel, the widow of late Mozambique President Samora Machel.
BETTY FORD
In the US while the marriage of Gerald and Betty Ford was seen as a public success, there was private heartache behind the doors to the White House – The First Lady's addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs.
The couple married in February 1948. Two weeks after their wedding, Jerry Ford was elected to Congress, and Betty Ford's life as a political wife began.
In 1973, at a time when Mrs Ford looked forward to a quiet retirement and spending more time with her husband, she found herself the most scrutinised woman in America as her husband was swept into the Oval Office with the resignation of President Nixon.
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Betty Ford . | As First Lady, Mrs Ford won respect and admiration for her frankness about subjects ranging from breast cancer and premarital sex to equal rights for women. Her controversial "60 Minutes" interview in August 1975, for example, triggered a deluge of nearly 35,000 letters and telegrams, many of them critical.
When asked about her views on premarital sex, she said that she would not be surprised to learn that her 18-year-old daughter had had an affair.
She said that, as a mother, she would counsel her daughter and try to find out something about the "young man."
Her husband said when he viewed the program, he calculated that it would cost him 10 million votes, but, when he read the printed version, he doubled the damage.
His pessimism was unwarranted, however. Betty's popularity soared.
Several months after the interview, a Harris Poll found that Mrs Ford had become one of history's most popular First Ladies and an asset to her husband in the 1976 presidential campaign.
It is possible that Betty Ford wasn't the only woman to have lived in the White House with a drinking problem. She was certainly the only one to tell the truth about it. Admitting she had a problem, then checking into a treatment program, made seeking a remedy for addiction more acceptable, even courageous.
CECILIA KADZAMIRA
Although she was not officially married to President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, her position as constant companion and "official hostess" made Cecilia Kadzamira more or less Malawi's First Lady. And a very powerful one at that.
Ms Kadzamira spent at least 30 years with President Banda until his death in 1997. So much was her influence on the president that at one time when the two were undergoing a rocky period in their relationship, in the early 1980s, he banned the Simon and Garfunkel song Cecilia from the radio. He clearly did not like the lyrics – Cecilia/I'm down on my knees/I'm begging you please to come home.
While Dr Banda was in power, she was touted as habouring presidential ambitions. Her aloof, arrogant manner made her a detested symbol of power during his brutal regime.
After Dr Banda's death in 1997, Ms Kadzamira and her powerful uncle, John Tembo, were charged with conspiracy to murder, but they were later acquitted.
After the death of the former Malawian strongman, controversy continued to dogged Ms Kadzamira when Banda's relatives accused her of manipulating him to change his will in her faviour.
However, the long term confidant of Dr Banda contested these suggestions. "The relatives came and went but I was always there," she said.
NANA RAWLINGS
"If President Rawlings epitomised former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, his wife Nana Konadu-Rawlings was Imelda Marcos and Eva Peron put together," wrote journalist Hido Onumah, "I witnessed first hand the brutalisation of a people's psyche by Rawlings and his wife."
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Nana Rawlings . | In an incident that compared to the sour relationship between Mrs Lucy Kibaki and former State House Comptroller Matere Keriri, Nana at one time declined to shake the hand of second-deputy-speaker Freddie Bay, a member of the opposition People's Conventional Party, who was standing in line with other parliamentary leaders to greet her.
In January1998 Nana came under public attack for suggesting that development projects may be tied to the direction in which electoral votes are cast. "The right hand bathes the left and the left, the right," she said in a speech broadcast on national television.
But not everyone was enthusiastic about her or her ambitions. Antipathy to her was not confined to the opposition, but within the ruling party itself. "The truth is that within our party National Democratic Congress (NDC), the people on the ground, the foot soldiers in the regions and districts, don't want her, and if she tries to run for the presidency, the party will split, simple," said a senior member of the party. At that time there was talk in Ghana of Nana succeeding her husband.
Then, the editor of the anti-Rawlings Guide newspaper was quoted by the BBC magazine as saying: "Constitutionally, I know she is qualified as president. But after nearly two decades of Jerry Rawlings, the prospect of his wife coming in right after him, possibly for eight more years, presents a dynastic and therefore dangerous phase in Ghanian politics."
VERA CHILUBA
Zambian First Lady Vera Chiluba had to endure the ignominy of being divorced while her husband, President Fredrick Chiluba, was still in office.
The messy divorce arose after Mr Chiluba accused her of having an affair with a prominent Zambian businessman, Archie Mactribouy. Later detained on a robbery charge, Mr Mactribouy told the Press that the case was a frame-up. He added that Vera Chiluba was only his business associate and not his lover.
The divorce became even more sordid with revelations and counter-revelations. The family of Ms Tungwa Chanda, estranged wife of Mr Mactribuoy, accused Vera Chiluba of breaking up her marriage, while Vera counter-charged that Tungwa had an affair with her husband.
Vera later described her break from Mr Chiluba as shameful. "A man even when he is king cannot be trusted let alone to run a nation", she was quoted as saying in the Post newspaper.
The September 2001 divorce after 33 years of marriage saw Vera claiming more than $2.5 billion – equivalent to more than three-quarters of the county's Gross Domestic Product–as part of the settlement.
The messy break-up became not just the butt of jokes in Zambia, but also raised questions about whether President Chiluba was fit to run the country if he could not run his own home.
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