Duncan Wachira: Moi’s police boss who secretly hosted Kibaki team

Former Police Commissioner Duncan Wachira will be remembered as one whose tenure (1996-1998) was to help President Daniel Moi tighten his grip on power despite his increasing unpopularity with the masses.

Mr Wachira died on Wednesday after battling a heart condition for some years. A statement from State House indicated he died in his Nairobi home.

Last year, he was taken to India after his condition worsened, and he was admitted to Apollo Protocol Hospital.

He served at a time the country was trying to come to terms with multiparty politics and Moi had just scraped through with a slim majority, thanks to a fractious opposition that lost despite having a majority on its side in the pioneer 1992 elections.

Wanted to play his part

Heading to the second 1997 multiparty General Election, Mr Wachira was the man of the moment in an era when the police force (changed to police service in 2010) was an instrument of political manipulation and the Moi regime took full advantage of his position to sway things his way.

“But there was one big problem with Wachira. Coming from Nyeri, which was the epicentre of opposition support, he was torn between supporting the government of the day and following his personal passions of playing a part in the democratisation processes,” Mr Joseph Kaguthi, a long-serving administrator, told the Nation yesterday.

Mr Kaguthi remembers Mr Wachira as a man whose positive passions for the country were unadulterated “but rendered impotent to freely advance those passions by the nature of his work.

“It was expected of him to be loyal to the government of the day and coming from a monolithic system of governance and trying to get the understanding of multiparty democracy could only confuse (him),” said the former powerful provincial commissioner.

Mr James Maina, who served as Mr Wachira’s Personal Assistant during his tenure and retired in 2001, described him as “full of life, cheeky and who had the unmatched knack of passing the buck to his advantage”.

For instance, when violence erupted in parts of the country after the 1997 elections, “he blamed it on police heads in the specific regions and accused them of liaising with opposition elements to undermine the leadership of the country”, said Mr Maina.

Yet, he adds, Mr Wachira received delegations from the opposition chiefs — especially Democratic Party’s Mwai Kibaki — to consult on various issues.

“The delegations usually came in the form of opposition-aligned police officers, who once seen walking in and out of Wachira’s office, would not have raised eyebrows. Wachira truly participated in discreetly entrenching multipartyism in the country by way of taming a full blown misuse of police force in quashing opposition growth,” Mr Maina said yesterday.

Mr Wachira acted cautiously when the Moi regime wanted to see him crack down harder on democracy agitators bent on dislodging Kanu from power in the 1997 General Election. President Moi won the 1997 elections and pressure eased off Mr Wachira’s shoulders but he immediately got a new work challenge — the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi by terrorists.

Spike in crime

As though fate had conspired to light a fire under Mr Wachira’s seat at Vigilance House, the country then suffered an upsurge in carjackings, bank heists and the start of a new form of armed crime dubbed walk-in-walk-out, where an armed robber would walk into a high cash flow shop posing as a customer, hold a gun on the cashier while demanding money, grab it and walk out.

“Mr Wachira, in one meeting with the head of the public service, lost his cool and blamed the rise in violent crimes on stock piling (of arms) among (officers) in the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) which has since changed to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI),” revealed Mr Maina.

He is said to have fumed that CID officers had run rogue and were carrying too many firearms that could not be accounted for. And apart from being used in criminal enterprises, they were a serious threat to national security.

This outburst is reported to have informed a directive that all officers be issued only one firearm at a time and the chief armourer directed to institute measures aimed at curbing armoury crooks.

Meanwhile, Mr Wachira is reported to have directed that all armed criminals be dealt with by the gun, instead of due process, the result being the shootings of gangsters in high numbers.

“The late Wachira will be remembered for scuttling the notorious criminal enterprise of the 1990s that featured some of Kenya’s most  infamous gangsters of all time,” retired President Kibaki said on Wednesday.

“His tenure as police chief witnessed some of the most deplorable events in Kenya’s history, including the audacious 1998 US Embassy  bombing, yet Wachira, somehow,  still managed to command his troops to    inspire public confidence,” Mr Kibaki added.         

When he exited the force, Mr Wachira was recruited by the Kibaki team as a security adviser, and when Narc came to power in 2002, rumours were rife that he was to be rewarded for his loyalty by way of appointment to a senior position — which never happened.

Presidency's support

He is reported to have incurred huge medical bills and Vigilance House and State House under President Uhuru Kenyatta are said to have been very supportive, paying some of them.

It was not lost on observers that confirmation of his death came from State House, where the President eulogised him as a true servant of the nation and a patriot who was committed to the wellbeing of the country.

“I have known Duncan Wachira as a man of great insight and unique qualities. During his time as the head of our police, Mr Wachira pioneered reforms that improved the welfare of our men and women in uniform. (He is) also remembered for his no-nonsense approach to the fight against crime, especially in Nairobi. It is during his time as the top cop, I remember, that many organised criminal syndicates were dismantled," said Mr Kenyatta.

The President added that Mr Wachira's virtues of hard work and dedication to duty would remain an inspiration to many young Kenyans, especially those serving the country in the disciplined forces.

Yesterday, residents of Magutu Ward in Mathira, Nyeri County, where he hailed from were in mourning.

His childhood friend and desk mate at Kanjuri primary school, Mr Solomon Wachira, yesterday described him as bright, humble and easy to interact with as a child.

Mr Joe Wanjau, a resident and former head of sales at Kenya Breweries and later a marketing director at Castle Breweries said he had interacted with Mr Wachira while he was working in Nairobi. He described him as an easygoing person who was always ready to help where he could.

Mr Jackson Kanja, a former councillor in Karatina, described him as a very humble and strict disciplinarian. He interacted with Mr Wachira when he retired from the police service and became the head of security with the campaign team of then-Mathira MP Ephraim Maina, currently the Nyeri senator.

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