When Joe Kadhi defied President Moi to tell fight for multiparty stories
Veteran journalist Joe Kadhi during a Media Council of Kenya forum on media’s role in fighting religious radicalisation in Mombasa in 2014.
What you need to know:
- President Moi had been calling newsrooms in a bid to stop a story on riots that had challenged his authority.
- Kadhi’s decision – and many others he made – would have ramifications on journalism in Kenya.
Had Joe Kadhi not defied President Daniel arap Moi, stories about the Saba Saba uprising of July 7, 1990 would have been watered down. History and significance would have been lost.
The riots, which followed the detention of pro-reform activists Kenneth Matiba, Charles Rubia, Raila Odinga, lawyers John Khaminwa, Mohammed Ibrahim and Gitobu Imanyara, marked the turning point in Kenya’s fight against one-party rule.
Joe Kadhi, who passed on this week, was at his office expecting a big story. It was a day of drama, deaths, and turmoil. A meeting called by Matiba, a former Cabinet minister who had been kicked out of Kanu, had, despite a ban and his arrest, attracted thousands of defiant youths and political activists led by Martin Shikuku, James Orengo and Masinde Muliro.
They had emerged, atop a pick-up truck, waving the two-finger salute to lead what appeared to be a leaderless crowd. An uprising was in the making. The calls for multiparty democracy had been dismissed by Kanu as “tribal” and would plunge the country into tribal clashes.
The General Service Unit (GSU) had charged at the crowd with batons, guns and tear gas. There was looting. Cars were burned. And journalists who went to cover the riots were targeted by police. One of them was Nation reporter Emman Omari. The only TV station, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, blacked out the ongoing riots. It was music as usual.
Then the call came. It was President Moi on the line. He had formed the bad manners over the years, calling newsrooms to issue demands. As Joe would later recall, President Moi told him in no uncertain terms. “I don’t want that story (about the riots) in the paper,” Moi said.
It was not a request – and it never sounded like one. Unaware of the call, the journalists were still writing the stories and Joe was agonising on what to do.
“I did not have the courage to tell the reporters to stop writing because they had been on the streets dodging blows and bullets, they had torn clothes and broken cameras and they were enthusiastically writing the story. How could I tell them to stop?” Joe is quoted in Gerard Loughran’s book Birth of Nation, which chronicles the history of The Nation.
It was at this point he decided to call Stanley Njagi, the managing director, and the Editor-in-Chief, George Mbugguss seeking their views.
“They told me, ‘You are the man on the spot, the decision is yours.’"
Kadhi was a mark of boldness. Moi had been calling newsrooms in a bid to stop a story on riots that had challenged his authority. And before Kadhi had digested Moi’s words, he got a call from Ali Hafidh, the then editor of The Standard. It appears that Hafidh had been instructed by Moi not to use the story. According to Kadhi, Hafidh wanted to relegate the Saba Saba riots into a small story – perhaps in the inside pages.
It appears that Moi had called all senior editors. “Fifteen minutes later,” recalled Kadhi, “I got a call from Philip Ochieng, who was the editor over at the Kenya Times. He said, ‘I have been instructed to tell you not to use that story.’ I was infuriated. OK, I had been told the decision was mine, so I decided to splash the story and run it long.”
Kadhi’s decision – and many others he made – would have ramifications on journalism in Kenya.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be fired the next day, or worse, arrested,” Kadhi recalled, “But nothing happened. It was an international story, the number one item on all the wire services. It was a story that could not be suppressed.”
For the next three days, spontaneous riots had hit six towns in Mt Kenya region, Kisumu and Nakuru and Kadhi was the man at the helm as Kenya went through this dark period.
Kadhi had been through such tests before. Fancy this: On Friday May 22, 1981, Kadhi was planning to send the paper to the printer when Joginder Singh Sokhi arrived. Sokhi was not your regular policeman. He was the master of terror and the symbol of police brutality at the Criminal Investigation Department – only second to Patrick Shaw.
That morning, President Moi had called the Nation newsroom demanding to know why the paper had used the word “anonymous” to describe a statement issued by the ruling party Kanu on its position about an ongoing doctors’ strike. Moi was livid.
Later that day, after lecturing Joe Rodrigues, the editor-in-chief, Moi was quoted by the Kenya News Agency threatening to ban the Daily Nation: “Kanu is the ruling party. I have full powers to ban this paper. I think such publications have grown horns because of our democratic nature. They have become irresponsible and outright rebellious.”
It was a period that Moi was planning to host the June 1981 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) meeting in Nairobi. His position as a leader was facing a mighty challenge from within as radicals started to question his leadership. It was time to panic.
With the doctors on strike, the ruling party issued a statement demanding that they return to work. Phillip Ochieng was the chief-sub and since the statement was not signed, he inserted the word ‘anonymous’ to describe the press statement.
On orders of G.G. Kariuki, the minister of State, two senior police officers led by Sokhi walked into Nation House and picked the two Joes: Joe Rodrigues, the editor-in-chief and Joe Kadhi. Others picked were News Editor, John Esibi. Later that night, two reporters, Pius Nyamora and Gideon Mulaki and Mr Ochieng were picked. This was unprecedented and had not happened in Kenya before.
While Rodrigues was later released the next day – a Saturday, after he was asked to give his story and the politicians he liases with helped, the rest were held over the weekend.
Kadhi later said: "I was thrown into a cell among common criminals and drunks who urinated on the floor and walls. Urine was ankle deep. It was terrible, I have never known such torture all my life."
The case drew instant reaction worldwide with calls from human rights groups asking Moi to set the journalists free. But although the Nation on Tuesday apologised to Moi and Kanu saying the use of the word "anonymous" was "just an unfortunate mistake and all the paper meant was that the statement was unsigned", this exposed Moi’s paranoia.
Kadhi was part of these efforts to hold Moi to account since Parliament and Judiciary had been compromised. The government accused Nation editors and the group of setting itself up as an opposition party. The then party’s organising secretary, Kalonzo Musyoka, knows the story much better since he at one point had The Nation kicked out of parliament for questioning Kanu excesses.
As Kadhi told Loughran, this state of affairs frightened weak-kneed journalists and as he put it, some editors ‘became butchers of important national stories which were only heard on the BBC, never read in our newspapers’.
The Nation was accused of being bankrolled by Kikuyus opposed to Moi. Thus, when Cyrus Jirongo and Youth for Kanu 92 arrived in town, and towed with them the young William Ruto as the chief executive, their first target was Nation where they paid several journalists to resign and accuse the media house of tribalism.
Kadhi left Nation in September 1991, and was replaced by a man who could also not stand Moi’s incessant calls: Wangethi Mwangi. Many of the current journalists know him as a media consultant and lecturer at the United States International University in Nairobi – where hundreds of media practitioners went through his hands, either in class or the many seminars he led.
Joe Kadhi had joined Nation at the dawn of independence and was one of the pioneer local journalists, who included George Mbugguss, John Abuoga, Henry Gathigira, George Githii and Joram Amadi. Others were James Ngugi (now Ngugi wa Thiong’o), Francis Masakhalia, and Hilary Ngw’eno. Kenya’s journalism was still colonial when he joined and stories about African nationalism were struggling to find space. He was part of a generation which would make the radical shift.
Joe’s Sunday Nation column “Why?” continued to question many of the ills in the African politics. It was his boldness that gave room to journalists to pursue investigative journalism knowing very well that there was a man who could stand the bullets for them. Joe Kadhi stood firm. A perfect gentleman and advocate for a free media in Africa.
[email protected] @johnkamau1
