The man who rattled his way to fame

“If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it.” This is a memorable quote from Environment and Mineral Resources minister John Michuki.

And when you see a yellow line on a public service vehicle, you remember the man who restored sanity on Kenya’s roads.

His tenure at the ministry of Transport is best remembered for the tough “Michuki Rules” which required all matatus and buses had to install speed governors and passenger safety belts.

As you walk around the Globe Cinema roundabout and see the new beautiful scenery that was once a dumping site, Mr Michuki will come to mind again.

When he later got down to rehabilitating the Nairobi River in April, few believed that clean water would ever meander down some of the city’s densely populated slums. Only months later, you can now trace fish in the once heavily polluted river.

For his efforts to rehabilitate the river, Mr Michuki was honoured by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) last month during a convention on the control of movement of toxic wastes.

Unep’s director of environmental conventions, Mr Bakari Kante, praised the minister’s “leadership and commitment to the global environment”.

Presenting the certificate, he said: “Here is a man who looks beyond short-term ambitions, and acts for future generations; someone who is not driven by short-term interest, but by public interest.”

Mr Michuki also took a key role in addressing Africa’s position towards the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen this month as the co-chairperson of the International Environmental Governance.

Born in 1932 at Iyego Location in Muranga District, Mr Michuki dropped out of primary school in 1943 and left for Nairobi where he did odd jobs at a tailoring shop.

It was here that he made some money to go back to school in 1944 but it ran out again in 1945 and he had to switch to Kiangunyi Primary School, where he passed his Kenya African Primary Education. He completed his ‘A’ Levels at Mang’u High School, where he also met President Kibaki.

Later, Mr Michuki studied administration and finance at Worcester College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, UK.

He joined the civil service in 1955 and worked for the colonial government. He was retained by the Kenyatta government after Kenya attained independence, serving in the ministry of Finance as an administrative officer. He rose to undersecretary and later became the Permanent Secretary for 10 years.

From 1970 to 1979 he was the chairman of the Kenya Commercial Bank. From 1983 to 1988 he was MP for Kangema and held various assistant ministerial posts.

In the December 2005 cabinet reshuffle, he was appointed the minister for Internal Security.

He ordered the raid on The Standard newspaper in March 2006. This action was widely condemned by Kenyan and international press and diplomats. It was then that he made his quote on rattling a snake.

He was moved to the ministry of Environment in April 2008, following the reaching of a power-sharing agreement between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.