Farewell to the indefatigable fighter for justice who goaded a rotten regime

Prof Wangari Maathai did not sit around moaning and whining and begging the male power structure for donation of 30 per cent; she fought it out and grabbed her own 100 per cent.

That is why it would be an insult to call her an activist because she was more than that; she was simply a doer.

I was a student at the University of Nairobi when I first met Prof Maathai at some National Council of Women of Kenya ceremony in the early 1980s.

I was wowed by the brave and straight-shooting environmentalist, who even in those dark days of the Moi dictatorship, was not afraid to speak her mind.

I had followed closely the 1980 divorce case that had catapulted her to a certain notoriety in a society where women, whatever their personal academic, professional and career achievements, were supposed to sit back silent and demure.

When she spoke out, in an interview with Salim Lone’s Viva magazine against the judge who’d sided with her estranged husband, Lang’ata MP Mwangi Mathai, she was jailed for contempt of court but later released on paying a fine.

The NCWK function came against the backdrop of pliant women leaders, supported by the Kanu regime, moving to oust her on the spurious grounds that her morality had been called into question.

The National Council of Women of Kenya was an umbrella body for all women’s groups in the country, but it enjoyed none of the power and prestige of one of its supposed affiliates, Jane Kiano’s Maendeleo ya Wanawake organisation that traditionally had enjoyed the patronage of the Kanu power structure.

In later years, Maendeleo leaders even acceded to some bizarre arrangement that brought their organisation directly under Kanu.
Back to the early 1980s function.

Prof Maathai was under siege as the Moi dictatorship schemed to remove her and her non-compliant associates from office.

The pioneering professor hit back as she knew best, with both barrels blazing, even as she prepared to relinquish the seat and focus her energies on the Green Belt Movement.

That was way before the Nobel Peace Prize could even be imagined, but I recall being dumbstruck by the honours and accolades from across the globe that Prof Maathai was already amassing.

It struck me that instead of confining herself to a laboratory at the University of Nairobi’s Chiromo Campus teaching veterinary anatomy, Prof Maathai had become a passionate crusader for the greening of the planet.

I was also impressed that, unlike many of the brainy scientists I’d come across who could not operate outside their arcane specialties, Prof Maathai had a deep, abiding interest in all matters of human development.

That naturally meant she’d grow beyond the Green Belt Movement to other areas of economic, social and cultural development, and hence to politics.

Before Kenneth Matiba, Charles Rubia, Oginga Odinga, Raila Odinga, Paul Muite, James Orengo, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku et al joined forces to challenge the power-monopoly of the single-party system, Prof Maathai had already demonstrated that President Moi was neither infallible nor unbwogable.

It was while wearing her environmentalist hat that the fearless crusader almost single-handedly saved Nairobi’s Uhuru Park from the rapacious designs of the Kanu barons, who saw greenery as wasted land ideal for a concrete monstrosity in homage to Moi.

Then later came the campaign that recovered Karura Forest from the kleptocrats who had parcelled out the vital pieces of green among themselves.

Some of those today claiming to mourn Prof Maathai were among the thieves who had grabbed Karura Forest.

They probably still hold securely the cancelled title deeds, awaiting the day when foolish Kenyan voters return them to power and they can reclaim their estates and resume in earnest the grand theft, looting and pillage they were accustomed to.

If you pass by Uhuru Park and Karura Forest, spare a thought for the fearless professor who protected the key parcels for public recreational use.

This is also the time, in Prof Maathai’s honour, to resume the stalled reclamation of Mau Forest.