If you're ever under pressure from your first wife, just publicy deny ever having a secnd wife. Or a daughter.

Kenya's normally mild-mannered President Mwai Kibaki yesterday called a rare news conference to deny persistent media reports of a second wife which he said had put him in a "foul mood".

The 77-year-old Kibaki, who has seldom addressed journalists directly since coming to power in 2002, was incensed at versions by some newspapers and politicians that he has a second relationship with a woman called Mary Wambui. "You know and I know and everybody else knows that I have only one dear wife, Lucy here. . . but the media keeps repeating about my having another wife or wives," he said at his State House residence in Nairobi, flanked by his wife. "I have gotten into this very foul mood after listening to some statement . . . I want to say quite frankly anyone who is bent on that course will see me in court. And we shall deal with him, no other way whatsoever," he added, referring to Paul Muite, who had spoken about a second wife.

Lucy Kibaki, on her part, famous for a volatile temper that once led her to slap a civil servant who mistakenly introduced her as Wambui, warned media she would not tolerate such reports. "You have been tormenting us. I don't know what you get out of it," she said, before pointing at a cameraman from KTN. "I nearly came to your studio last night to attack you the way I did the Nation," she added, referring to a previous incident where she stormed into a newsroom. She has also been known in the past to knock the teeth off Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara and VP Kalonzo Musyoka.

The Kibakis said they would sue anyone who discusses the matter publicly.