Njonjo, Leakey left indelible marks

The passing on of Charles Mugane Njonjo on Sunday at 101 marked more than the exit of a man who once wielded immense influence. For most of the period he served as the Attorney-General from Independence in 1963 he held no elective office but was the  éminence grise of Kenyan leadership.

All other leaders should have lessons to learn from the career and personality of this enigmatic character.

‘Sir Charles’ was many things to many people. He was the unabashed Anglophile; with undisguised contempt for fellow Africans. He was also the stickler for perfection, efficiency and order who did not suffer fools gladly.

The Kenya of the early years of Independence ran like clockwork because of people like Njonjo, who rejected the notion that freedom must be come with deterioration of standards.

But Njonjo was also afflicted with extreme arrogance and vanity. He was a dictator who preferred to ‘rule’ by fear. This was not just in the legal cover he provided Presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi for detention without trial. It was also reflected in the power he directly exercised over the police, prosecution and courts. Whoever crossed him would soon find himself behind bars on the most ridiculous of trumped-up charges.

Downfall

Njonjo, even with the fateful transition to politics in 1981 that eventually led to his downfall, did not seek to be loved. He did not care about courting popularity but only about the exercise of power.

He could also be extremely petty, along his career stoking lifelong rivalries with Cabinet colleagues such as Mwai Kibaki and Njoroge Mungai on issues as mundane as dressing style or who was the more eligible bachelor.

The undisputed fact, however, is that Njonjo made his mark. How many of our current leaders will rate even a footnote in history?

Njonjo, incidentally, died on the same day as another fabled countryman. Dr Richard Leakey was one of the few Kenyans, alongside the likes of Tom Mboya and Ibrahim Hussein, to grace the covers of American news magazines Time and Newsweek.

He was a powerful force in many fields. His stints at the National Museum and Kenya Wildlife Service, and brief forays into politics and public service leadership, were marked by stellar accomplishments and equal doses of controversy, as well as stormy exits.

Surprise appointment

I had two memorable encounters with the man. On his surprise appointment as President Moi’s Civil Service proconsul in 1999, I opined in The Economic Review that a high school dropout had been tasked with reviving Kenya from economic doldrums. Soon afterwards, he called me to his Harambee House office for a very engaging chat.

Many years later, in 2018, after watching the Black Panther, I wrote on this space that the record-breaking movie of an African superhero must have been set around Lake Turkana and the confluence of Kenya and Ethiopia. I soon received a call from Dr Leakey. He was excited about what such an association would do for the stomping grounds of his legendary anthropological finds and, specifically, for his proposed Turkana Basin Institute.

Dr Leakey was, however, frustrated that the Turkana County government was not being supportive of a project that he said had already secured billions of shillings in international funding, and he was already considering moving it to Kajiado County.

When I raised eyebrows that an elderly man who had already had three kidney transplants was talking 10-year timelines, he commented that he intended to be around for a long time to come.

* * *

The late-night television news was humming quietly in the background last Thursday when I stood to attention on news from home.

Five or so weeks across the Pond, I had not seen or heard my insignificant little country once mentioned on any of the local or international TV channels.

But elation turned to dismay, for what had caught attention of global TV networks was nothing but a silly little brawl in Parliament. What became news was not the substance and import of the business before the National Assembly but the mere fact of debate turning physical.

The sad truth is that very few of us actually know what is at stake beyond the usual power plays and ego battles ahead of the 2022 General Election.

Even the main protagonists no longer care what the real issue is — only that they must demonstrate who command supremacy in the battle of brawn over brain.

When two bull fight, it is the grass that suffers.

Suffer, poor Kenyan.

[email protected]. www.gaitho.co.ke @MachariaGaitho