Moi perfected tossing pigeons to the cats

President Daniel arap Moi leads Jamhuri Day celebrations in Nairobi on December 12, 2002. His last major act in throwing straws to the wind came with the unveiling of Uhuru Kenyatta as his preferred successor. PHOTO | SIMON MAINA | AFP

What you need to know:

  • With Moi safely in power, the next move was to get rid of the kingmaker, Njonjo, lest he come back to claim his pound of flesh.
  • Then the Mwakenya scare happened, providing another opportunity for dozens of citizens to be frogmarched to prison, if not disappeared altogether.

In the game of stirring the pool to test the waters, retired President Daniel arap Moi was the drum major.

He did it from the time he took over as acting president in 1978 to his retirement 24 years later.

The transition from acting to substantive Head of State in his first 90 days in office wasn’t smooth, as powerful men in his predecessor Jomo Kenyatta’s era made last-ditch efforts to derail him.

To test the waters, Moi’s handlers had outspoken MP from the Coast, Sharif Nassir, declare that Kenyans were set to elect him substantive President unopposed, short of which there would be chaos in the country.

He did not state how he had arrived at the conclusion, but the statement had the desired effect.

The first hurdle was to have Moi and his line-up elected to head the only political party in the country, Kanu.

Out of the blue, assistant minister GG Kariuki sent to media houses a pink paper headlined Kenya Imeamua (Kenya has decided) and in it the line-up of who would be elected Kanu top office-bearers.

ASSASSINATION SQUAD

He did not say on whose authority he released the list, as he was a mere district Kanu chairman, not the party spokesman.

Unknown to the media, the same pink list had quietly been circulated to the provincial administration, with instructions to “carefully” hand-pick delegates who would vote in the new party office-bearers.

Nassir’s lone-ranger declaration and the GG’s “pink-list” did the trick. Moi sailed through unopposed, and his line-up took control at Kanu headquarters.

Moi’s adversaries were down, but not yet out. Then Moi’s chief strategist, Attorney-General Charles Njonjo, dropped a bombshell — that there had been an “assassination squad” formed to kill Moi and his top allies in politics, security and the civil service.

As the public digested the “breaking news”, real and perceived Moi enemies in the security and provincial administration were shown the door through sacking or forced retirement.

A political purge would come in the general election one year later.

SYSTEM PURGED

With Moi safely in power, the next move was to get rid of the kingmaker, Njonjo, lest he come back to claim his pound of flesh.

Sharif Nassir returned to throw a stone into the pool. He claimed that there were people close to the President who were “hyenas in sheep’s clothing”.

Before long, Njonjo’s cousin, Andrew Muthemba, was charged with treason, but the courts — then under Njonjo’s grip — dismissed the case as fictitious.

In quick succession came a military coup attempt. A section of top-ranking men in the security intelligence at the time insist that the attempt could have been stopped before it happened, but the powers that were allowed it to happen, then used it as an excuse to purge real and imagined opposition to Moi.

The jury is still out on this, but the failed coup offered an opportunity to clear the security system of the unwanted elements.

A political purge would follow later. Moi then dropped the bombshell of Msaliti, a traitor in his government “groomed by foreigners” to seize power.

He made the allegation while on a visit to Kisii as a guest of the then powerful permanent secretary in the Office of the President Simeon Nyachae.

It has since come out that the traitor story was cooked up at Nyachae’s rural home, where Moi spent the night.

NJONJO DECOMMISSIONED

Njonjo would later be named the said traitor, sacked from the Cabinet, and a commission of inquiry appointed to probe him.

Incidentally, the commission’s secretariat was headed by Mr Nyachae’s sidekick, lawyer Jared Kangwana.

The commission “ascertained” that, indeed, Njonjo had plotted to oust Moi through illegal means.

Moi then said he had “forgiven” Njonjo on consideration of his (advanced) age — 64. This month, Njonjo turns 100.

The traitor bogeyman served the perfect excuse to get rid of Njonjo and other pretenders to the throne.

Next was an economic purge to weaken the financial muscle of perceived threats to the Moi presidency.

A Kanu functionary, Samuel arap Ngeny, said that some “rich men” in a certain part of the country were holding night meetings to plot Moi’s ouster.

He added that a section of the country had an undue share of the country’s wealth and needed to be reined in so that the “donkey could catch up with the horse in the race”.

Then business and agricultural enterprises owned by people from the Mount Kenya region started crashing.

MWAKENYA SCARE

But political opposition thrived underground, especially in the Mount Kenya and Luo Nyanza regions.

Then the Mwakenya scare happened, providing another opportunity for dozens of citizens to be frogmarched to prison, if not disappeared altogether.

Significantly, the Mwakenya “trials” would be rushed through the courts after office hours or on weekends, presided over by the same prosecutor and magistrate. The charge sheets for all accused were the same.

Next, Moi sought to sack his deputy, Mwai Kibaki. To send out feelers, Cabinet minister Elijah Mwangale was dispatched to Kibaki’s Nyeri backyard, where he said that some highly-placed personalities in central Kenya were “Nyayo followers (meaning loyal) during the day but Judases at night”.

Henceforth, anybody associating with Kibaki became a politically endangered species.

Then Moi came out with the “suggestion” that future elections be determined through queuing behind the candidates, not by secret ballot.

The church and the civil society said no, but the President was determined to bulldoze through the queuing system.

Nassir came up with a declaration that queuing system it would be “mpende msipende!” (like it or not!)

LAW AMENDMENT

When the time came to sack vice-president Kibaki, a section of the media was used to test the waters.

The respected Weekly Review magazine came out with a cover story insinuating that Kibaki was not “loyal enough” and would face the axe.

Kibaki angrily rebutted the charge, but the die was cast. He was sent packing. His successor, Josephat Karanja, lasted only 10 months before Moi stirred the pot.

For a trial balloon, a junior civil servant by the name Kuria Kanyingi claimed that a top politician, whom he didn’t name, was forcing people to “kneel down before him”.

After two months of rowdy public meetings, where Kanyingi repeated the allegation, VP Karanja was “unmasked” as the “kneel-before-me” politician.

Within days he was sent to the political dustbin.

Another occasion when Moi threw pigeons to the cats came when amending the old Constitution to allow multiple political parties.

Initially, Moi vowed it would only happen over his dead body, but intense pressure at home and from abroad eventually prompted him to make an about-turn.

MOI'S SUCCESSOR

To make the announcement, he summoned Kanu delegates to Kasarani Stadium and let them foam at the mouth in expressing opposition to multipartyism.

Moi had one delegate, assistant minister Njenga Karume, who proposed the repeal of Section 2A, which proscribed other political parties, to allow their formation. But Karume didn’t even get it right, talking of Section A2.

To placate central Kenya, where opposition to Kanu was most intense, Moi sided with Karume and swayed the delegates into accepting pluralism.

Moi’s last major act in throwing straws to the wind came with the unveiling of Uhuru Kenyatta as his preferred successor.

Kanu secretary-general Joseph Kamotho told me about the very first time he got wind of what Moi had in mind for Uhuru, but considered it a wild shot.

Moi was in a tour of central Kenya where, besides the senior Kanu politicians from the region in tow, he had dragged along a surprise guest, the Olkejuado County Council chairman, the late Daniel ole Muyaa.

During a stopover in Thika — Uhuru’s hometown — Moi asked his guest to greet the people.

Muyaa went straight to the point, asking the President to consider “anointing this young man Uhuru as your successor”.

Those present, including the media, dismissed it as a joke by the Kajiado politician.

In retrospect, as Kamotho reckoned years later, Moi had instructed the Kajiado politician to drop the Uhuru bombshell.

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Postscript: Recently, vocal retired provincial administrator Joseph Kaguthi narrated to me a conversation he once had with Shariff Nassir in which he asked him why he had a knack for controversial statements.

The politician laughed and replied, “Politics is like cooking porridge: you have to keep stirring the pot.” This year, Kenya’s pot will be stirred — vigorously.