Former Permanent Secretary Justus Ndoto pictured on August 29, 2024, at his home in Runda, Nairobi.
The driver honking at Justus Ndoto’s car on the Northern Bypass in Nairobi has no idea that this is a man who has been driving cars since 1963. Mr Ndoto throws a glance at the left side mirror to see which car this might be.
As the sports utility vehicle whizzes past, Mr Ndoto mutters something under his breath about young people always being in a rush.
His driving is exactly what you would expect an 87-year-old to be — by the book. He straps the seatbelt on himself before he starts the engine. On the road, he works the indicators where he should, leaves a very un-Nairobi-like distance between him and the vehicle ahead of him, and appears to be running on fuel called “slow but sure”.
Slow, sure, and attracting honks; honks from impatient motorists who might have no clue that this is a man who was once a permanent secretary under Kenya’s second president, Daniel Moi, in ministries headed by the likes of Charles Njonjo, Kenneth Matiba, Simeon Nyachae, Stanley Oloitiptip, Andrew John Omanga, among others.
“I worked with all these people, and to work with them was not easy,” he says as we sit under a tree at his Runda home for a chat. “I (also) worked with many people whom I admired.”
They can’t tell that this man was at some point the board chairman of Kenya Pipeline Company, the Export Processing Zones Authority, the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation, and the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
A Thursday afternoon with him delivers a glimpse of life after power. It is all quietness, all tranquillity, and somewhat lonely.
“It is fulfilling,” he says of retirement. “Of course, it is different in the sense that you are not earning.”
He spent 47 years in public service: 23 in the civil service (where he started off as a district officer and peaked as permanent secretary) and 24 in various parastatals.
“I enjoyed my public service,” he says.
In the late 1980s, he toyed with the idea of joining elective politics to represent the people of Kitui County. He did not take that plunge, though; his brother George Ndotto did — and became the Kitui Central MP in the 1988 General Election. George would later become a minister under Mr Moi.
Four photos can sum up the story of Mr Ndoto, who was last year given an honorary doctorate by Drake University. He joined the institution in 1960 and left in 1964, studying political science and economics.
He joined the Iowa-based institution a year after he failed to find space in the first airlift that was organised by Tom Mboya and his associates. Mr Ndoto was in the list until the very final moments when he learnt that he could not make it to the aeroplane. He, and many other disappointed students, were told to wait for the second airlift. However, he found a way to head to the US before the second cohort left Kenya.
Former Permanent Secretary Justus Ndoto pictured on August 29, 2024 at his home in Runda, Nairobi.
Photo 1: This photo was taken on the day of the interview. Mr Ndoto was at his Runda home on August 29, waiting for us while clad in a suit because “I was not sure what you would have wanted me to wear”.
His navy-blue suit, white shirt and a dotted navy-blue necktie betrayed his attachment to the dress code of power. The colour of his clothes somewhat aligned with his grey-haired head and its receding hairline. And that age-related whitishness in his pupils.
In his heyday, he would travel far and wide to negotiate deals, secure loans, represent Kenya, the works. The US, UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Hong Kong, among many others, were part of his locus.
“I’ve travelled quite a bit on my work,” he says.
He got a job with the Kenyan government when he was still a student in the early 1960s.
“I was recruited while I was in the US by a recruitment team from the Public Service Commission to come to be a clerk assistant in the National Assembly. But when I came back to Kenya to work as the clerk’s assistant in the National Assembly, I was advised that it is better to go to the provincial administration. When I went to provincial administration, I was told, ‘You have to go to the field first,'” he says. “The policy of the government at that time was that when you finished your university, you had to go and serve in the field first before you came to the centre.”
He started off as a district officer in Nyeri, then moved to the DC’s office before he became a personal assistant to the provincial commissioner for Central.
“After a few years in the field, I was transferred to Nairobi, in the Office of the President,” says Mr Ndoto.
Then he rose up the ranks: assistant secretary, senior assistant secretary, undersecretary, deputy secretary, deputy permanent secretary, then finally permanent secretary (PS).
“I served as PS in eight ministries,” he says, noting that he first held that role in December 1979.
He started off with the Home Affairs ministry and finished with the Tourism docket. His last year as a PS was in 1988.
“After 1988, I was appointed chairman of Kenya Pipeline Company,” he says.
After chairing various parastatal boards, his last government engagement was as a council member of Moi University. He left the council in 2012 after two terms.
At the age of 75, he called time on his public career. The knife-edge moments of overseeing one thing or another on behalf of the republic were taken off his shoulders.
“It’s slow, of course. It’s slow,” Mr Ndoto says of life after public service. “Life is quiet, but it is satisfying in the sense that you don’t have the burden one would have in the civil service when you are faced with all kinds of problems and issues which you have to tackle.”
“Since I retired, I have tried to keep off government offices. I don’t go there. I live my quiet life. I have my peace.”
Given his experience in public service, he believes an effective permanent secretary (the role is called principal secretary by dint of the 2010 Constitution) should rise through the ranks. If someone branches from another sector directly to such a high position, he says, there will be gaps.
“You will not have the feel of the civil service and the field for that matter,” he says. “To be an effective PS, it is good for one to have grown in the civil service.”
“If you grow in the civil service and later you become the head, the PS, then you know what happens below you. In the field, you understand the country to start with. You get that experience. You know what happens on the ground,” adds Mr Ndoto.
In her autobiography, former Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki notes that as things stand, PSs are far detached from ministers, which denies the latter the ability to monitor things closely.
“This dichotomy creates a significant hurdle for CSs (ministers) to unearth any pilfering of public funds through manipulated tenders, unless a stark contrast between work done and money paid emerges, at which point it’s already too late,” she writes in her book, Breaking the Illusions. “In Kenya, or so it appears, when a scandal erupts in a ministry, CSs often bear the brunt.”
Mr Ndoto says it is common for ministers to take political responsibility for problems in their ministries, though the offices under them don’t go unpunished.
“If there are major issues, more so touching maybe on policy,” says Mr Ndoto, “the practice is that the minister is ultimately responsible for that.”
“For mistakes made by officers below the minister, including the PS, there is a code of conduct. They are disciplined. They can be dismissed or transferred. There’s a procedure for disciplining them. They don’t go scot-free. The minister comes in when it’s something major, like a big scandal.”
In the photo, you see the man who would receive calls from the president; who wielded massive power over thousands of civil servants; who oversaw numerous projects. From the construction of structures like Nyayo House to the building of hospitals in Nyamira, Siaya, Makueni and beyond, he has seen it all.
Mr Justus Ndoto (second left), when he was given a honorary doctorate degree from Drake University in the US in May 2023.
Photo 2: In the photo, Mr Ndoto cuts the figure of a man who is yet to believe that this is happening; yet to resolve in his mind whether this is all a dream. He is in a graduation gown as a citation is being read to confer him with his doctorate at Duke University. This was on May 13, 2023, and Mr Ndoto was thrilled.
“I feel very happy that my university was able to award me this honour. It is a great honour,” he says.
For years now, Drake University has been giving an honorary degree to a maximum of two people every year, and according to a list on its website, 291 people have received the degree since 1884. Mr Ndoto is the 290th.
In his home, he proudly holds the casing containing the degree and its citation. The citation is a 406-word affair that explains why the university, founded in 1881, gave him a degree of Doctor of Public Service.
“After 47 years of public service in Kenya — representing your country at the regional, national, and global level — you are an example to our students of what it means to live a life of civility, character, and service.
“In 1960, determined to earn a college degree in the United States, you raised funds to travel from your homeland of Kenya to the United States and overcame cultural and academic international barriers to make your higher education goals a reality.
“You graduated from Drake University in 1964 with a major in political science and a minor in economics,” the citation reads in part.
“After earning your Drake degree, you chose to return to Kenya to serve your country at a critical point in its history. Kenya had recently achieved its independence and was in a sensitive state of transition. You quickly rose through the ranks in the Kenyan government to be named Permanent Secretary (the highest position one can be appointed to in the civil service) in eight government ministries: Home Affairs, Environment and Natural Resources, Constitutional and Home Affairs, Constitutional Affairs, Culture and Social Services, Lands and Settlement, Department of Defence under the Office of the President, and Tourism and Wildlife,” it adds.
“Your work was instrumental in shaping Kenya’s infrastructure and laying a foundation for a future of peace and security that will benefit Kenyans for generations to come,” the citation further says. “We are proud to call you a Drake alumnus.”
Prior to making the trip, Mr Ndoto says he received a letter from the university’s president in 2022.
“He wrote me a letter telling me that the university had decided to award me an honorary doctorate degree. He mentioned all the processes,” says Mr Ndoto.
The nomination process of an honorary doctorate recipient is rigorous and it starts with a nomination. Then a committee takes up the applications, reviews them and gives recommendations to the university faculty.
“The faculty senate votes on its recommendation, which is submitted to the Drake University Board of Trustees for final consideration,” says a document on the awards.
Mr. Ndoto, who had stayed a while before traveling outside Kenya, had to renew his passport because he had to be there to get the degree.
“My passport had expired. I had stopped travelling,” he says. “I had to get a passport for my wife and myself and we travelled for the occasion.”
The university funded his travel, and there he was joined by his brother, George, who had attended the graduation of his grandson. One of Mr Ndoto’s daughters, who is based in Washington, DC, was also there.
“It was a very colourful ceremony,” he says.
Mr Justus Ndoto, a former permanent secretary and board chairman of various parastatals, with his wife Victoria at a past State event.
Photo 3: The photo captures a younger Mr Ndoto with his wife, Victoria. They have been married for more than 60 years now and they have six children together— three boys and an equal number of girls.
Mr Ndoto can’t exactly recall when the photo was taken, but the background suggests that they were at a State function.
“There were many functions we used to attend at State House,” he says, noting that public holidays like Jamhuri and Madaraka necessitated such events.
So, does he have any regrets about the way he has conducted his family life?
“No, I have no regrets. Even (from my life) in the civil service,” he says unflinchingly.
One of the couple’s sources of pride is that they have given each of their children a good education.
Justus Ndoto (third right in the foreground) when he was a university student in the United States in 1963.
Photo 4: This is a 1963 photo, and Mr Ndoto is the only Black person in a forest of whites. It so happened that Drake University had sent him to take part in a special United Nations (UN) programme, which was being done through Drew University in New Jersey. They would visit the UN headquarters in New York three times every week.
So, why is he the only Black one?
“We were from various universities. It depended on the nominating colleges and universities and the students who were taking part. Maybe, some universities did not know,” he says.
He reckons that the photo was taken before Kenya gained independence. When Kenya broke free from colonial rule, Mr Ndoto remembers organising a celebration for foreign students — and the governor of Iowa attended.
“I was the chairman of Kenya students in the state of Iowa,” he says.
Mr Ndoto went to the US through the harambee spirit of fundraisers, and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was among those who attended a harambee in Kitui to raise funds for him to travel.
“I was left in the first airlift because of the numbers. There were many of us who were left. I was told I would go in a second airlift, which was in 1960. But before the second airlift, which was around August or September, I got in touch with some families in the US. We started corresponding and they arranged for me to go,” says Mr Ndoto.
“I had raised money through harambee and through my clan to enable me to go,” he adds, noting that he left for the US before the second airlift happened.
The airlifts, which ended in 1963, produced numerous leading lights in Kenya, among them Wangari Maathai, George Saitoti, Zachary Onyonka, Maina Wanjigi, among others.
But Mr Ndoto’s journey to the US was more like that of Barack Obama Senior, as he took himself there on a separate arrangement.
“I went to Tabor College in Kansas, where I studied for one year and then transferred to Duke University,” says Mr Ndoto.
It was a tough US to live in because of racism. Mr Ndoto remembers choosing a special spot for his haircut because he couldn’t just go anywhere for a shave.
He schooled in the US by scholarships and through working as a student. It is while there that he saw the need to have a car, and so he started driving in 1963.
Through the same spirit of harambee that helped him go to the US, Mr Ndoto would later, as board chairman of various schools in Ukambani, raise funds for various projects. Among them is Tiva Secondary School in Kitui.
“The harambee movement has done very well for a long time. It was only recently when it started taking a different shape. It helped. I have conducted harambees for many people who are going abroad,” he says. “It has been abused. Harambee nowadays is not what it was before.”
He also served as the chairman of the board of St Charles Lwanga School in Kitui for about 15 years.
“When I was chairman there, they used to be in the top 10 in KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education),” says Mr Ndoto.
The four are just among many photos that Mr Ndoto has taken over time. In his residence, where nature appears to be in silent mode, with trees swaying softly and birds peacefully going about their business, the former civil servant keeps reminiscing about the part he played in shaping the destiny of this place called Kenya, with its impatient drivers and all.
