Pain of reading Uhuru Kenyatta’s biography

There were at least six significant (auto)biographies published last year. In terms of structure, style and depth, Jane Clare Barsby’s Abraham’s People: A Kenyan Dynasty was the path-breaking book of the year.

At the bottom of the pile lies Irungu Thatiah’s Hard Tackle: The Life of Uhuru Kenyatta.

It would be unfair to say anything more about Barsby’s accomplishments next to a reading of Thatiah’s book. But if there is any reader out there who has been aggrieved by the quality of Thatiah’s writing, I recommend a reading of Abraham’s People. Barsby’s artfully told story of the patriarch of the business empire that came to be known as Block Hotels, is the balm that will restore the aggrieved reader’s faith in the value of biography writing.

Thatiah’s book is not entirely lacking in merit. It is a stunning reminder of the cunning ruthlessness of our power-seekers.

For those who may have forgotten, or those who did not witness political events before the 2013 general election, Thatiah gives a chronology of political party formations.

He also dramatizes the near-comic circus of the defections, coalitions, mergers, recycled actors, betrayals and seasonal partnerships that have been the bane of our multi-party politics since 1992.

He is not the first person to point out how malleable our media is, but Thatiah is certainly the first one to do so with a relish that makes no moral judgment on corruption.

He depicts the press as a gullible accomplice when he narrates the story of Moses Mwihia, the man who beat Uhuru Kenyatta in the 1997 race for the Gatundu South seat, by planting a story — on the eve of the elections — that he, “the peasant candidate … had been kidnapped by a powerful Kanu.”

According to Thatiah, even when the press uncovers major corruption scandals, the brief comes from politicians who are out to destroy their rivals.

In the run-up to the 2007 election, “ODM had recruited gatekeepers in the newsrooms around the city, so that anything unfavourable to ODM or favourable to PNU was yanked out before it reached the studios or the production lines.”

UNDERHAND DEALINGS

Should we believe him because he is an insider?

“A journalist’s prospects for promotion often depend on the quality of political gossip he delivers to his pot-bellied editor.”

Thatiah does not shed any tears for this loss of professionalism; he sneers at those who lack the skills to manipulate media houses.

“Dennis Onyango also lacked guile to meet media practitioners in dark corners and cut deals under the table.”

These underhand dealings are seen as par for the course, a sport in which all is well when the slyest fox wins.

Without any compunction, Thatiah tells us that there was “a cabal of closely-knit Luo journalists who had executed an unforeseen coup in the media houses and taken over the news desks of several departments of a newspaper and a TV station … then delivered the desks to their hero Raila Odinga”.

One of the big deficits in this book is that the writer does not account for his sources. In the field of cultural studies — under which biography writing falls — one is allowed to use rumours.

But in doing so, one must claim them as such and demonstrate the function of a rumour. How was it structured, circulated and employed? What was it intended to achieve and what did it actually accomplish?

Thatiah quotes “the words of one American diplomat” to illustrate his argument that Uhuru’s ICC case was framed by “top diplomats from Britain and the US … top leadership of a rival political party, and technical assistance from the KNHCR”.

Where did Thatiah find the words of this American diplomat? Did he interview him, read a memo, intercept a Wikileak or eavesdrop on cocktail chatter?

SIMPLY PREMATURE

For anyone who has read meticulously researched biographies such as Sally Jacobs The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father, Thatiah’s Hard Tackle is simply premature.

He seems to have relied on no more than three personal interviews of unnamed people close to Uhuru, a handful of photographs, occasional press reports and some official speeches.

Evidently, the writer was unable to find any of Uhuru’s relatives, nannies, drivers, watchmen or any other such credible witnesses of events from below, to give him insider accounts.

He did not interview any of Uhuru’s boyhood friends.

What he says about Uhuru’s adolescence is painted in broad, repetitive strokes that are closer to bar room gossip than fact.

Thatiah’s basic theory is that to be a successful Kenyan politician, one must be a deceitful and unrepentant schemer.

Consequently, he paints Uhuru Kenyatta as a double-talking, two-timing manipulator of events and people; a personality that he gradually developed as he wrestled with other politicians in the “battle for the soul of KANU”.

Thatiah opines that Uhuru succeeded in 2013 because he joined Raila in making “spirited forays into the media”; he played the underdog even when he knew he wasn’t; he identified ways of maximising tribal arithmetic; he understood where Kibaki’s PNU failed in 2007 and he relied on professionals rather than politicians to run TNA’s affairs.

SALIENT ISSUES

In the Introduction, Thatiah tells us that he opted to write an unauthorised biography, rather than a commissioned autobiography, because he wanted to have the freedom to use “very detailed information, a great deal of it classified”. But even though he tries very hard to be objective about his subject, he remains silent on some salient issues.

He makes no mention of the victory speech that Uhuru read on behalf of the “No” team after the 2005 referendum. Who wrote that speech?

In it, Uhuru urged the people of Central Province not to isolate themselves from the rest of the country. Did Uhuru have any inkling, any misgivings, about the ways in which those words would be escalated into the “41 against 1” campaign strategy that provided the rationale for post-election violence? 

Who edited Hard Tackle? Bad grammar is as painful as off-key singing. When your tongue is constantly caught between your teeth by dodgy punctuation, a carelessly thrown preposition and misplaced pronouns, the joy of reading is turned into self-inflicted punishment.

Sample this “his and hers” aberration. “His famous name not withstanding, his mother was adamant that his first son must prove himself…”.

Far too often, there is no agreement between Thatiah’s subjects and verbs. For example, “So heated had been the meeting at Awori’s home that Kipkalya Kones had accosted an influential DP MP by the swimming pool with a copy of their own MoU with Raila”.

Sometimes, the plethora of wrong prepositions provides comic relief. “Now the shoe was in the other foot and it wasn’t fitting at all”.

Virtually every page in this book is riddled with errors!

The only thing that urges one to read on is the occasional literary delight from the colourful metaphors that give Hard Tackle local texture and admirable pace.

“In the political game park that President Mwai Kibaki and Roads Minister Raila Odinga created in post-Kanu Kenya, it was not enough to maul your enemies into submission. It was also necessary to break the kraal and eat their babies too.”

But there are moments, in this robust imagery when Thatiah degenerates into unnecessary Miguna-like abuses. He becomes a tiresome phrasemonger.

No matter how many times you read the following description of William Ruto, it just doesn’t make sense. “This specimen of psychosomatic studies was the perfect political gladiator Kenyatta needed as a long-term partner”.

Biographies are factual studies in character development. They rely on nuances of literary fiction to string together a gripping, edifying account that pays attention to chronology, cause and effect.

Biographies must be far much more than guilty pleasures derived from dipping into salacious gossip and unsupported half-truths.

While Thatiah’s narrative structure is refreshing, his portrait of the subject falls short of capturing a full life.

We come away knowing nothing of Uhuru the sibling, Uhuru the husband and Uhuru the father. Hard Tackle: The Making of a Kenyan Politician would have been a far more accurate description of what this book is really about.

Dr. Nyairo is a Cultural Analyst. [email protected]