To remember Karimi, read ‘The Kenyatta Succession’

Joseph Karimi may have quietly slipped away from public life since he retired and died two weeks ago. Maybe that General Mathenge story scar was too much to bear. But, surely, this is a man Kenyans should remember.

He may have kept away from the public limelight — I guess those old-fashioned journalists had never heard of the word ‘commentator’ that would have made them remain relevant on TV channels — but he spent his last days doing what any self-respecting author would do: write.

So, when I read his last book, Dedan Kimathi: The Whole Story, I vividly recalled reading a copy of The Kenyatta Succession (co-authored with Philip Ochieng) in 1996.

As a student of history then, The Kenyatta Succession was one of those books that revealed what the history books I was reading in class weren’t saying. Here was a story that openly talked about plots and counterplots in government that one could only associate with spy or war films.

Although the 1990s were the days of agitation against Moi and Kanu, here was also a book that offered a different context — for those of us who were too young in the 1970s to understand the power play — to the politics that we knew through the media and public rallies. One started to sense that we weren’t necessarily a ‘peace-loving and united country’, dedicated to follow Nyayo and Kanu forever.

Even today, hardly do we hear of such things as you will read in The Kenyatta Succession. Indeed, there is little chance that a Kenyan will ever write a book with the weight of revelation like Karimi and Ochieng did.

So, why is it that in a time when the politics of succession is the hot topic of the day, Kenyans hardly mentioned Karimi and The Kenyatta Succession in the same breath as they mourned him? Why, yet ‘the change-the-constitution movement’ is still around in many shades.

It may not be about changing the Constitution to bar someone from running for the presidency in 2022 like it was in the mid-1970s. But what is so different between then and now? Haven’t we heard pronouncements in the media that some regions have to produce a ‘running mate’ to whoever will run for the presidency, or else their votes can’t be taken for granted?

Today, the alternative media is full of stories about what Karimi and Ochieng then called ‘the struggle over institutions.’ Stories abound on social media about which community has to keep or get whatever public post in whatever public organisation, especially the parastatals.

WELL-REHEARSED DECLARATIONS

In fact, state appointments these days generate well-rehearsed declarations of ‘should you retire or fire one of our sons or daughters, you have to appoint another homeboy or girl.’ Thus state corporations are supposed to ‘feed’ some particular community and, therefore, guarantees political capital for the ruling class. Its other name is corruption.

Karimi and Ochieng noted in The Kenyatta Succession that being close or related to the person in power often paid off handsomely. It is difficult to contest such a conclusion today.

Another institution that was worth fighting for in those days was Kanu. Who you were in Kanu or where you were positioned was very important. Indeed, the succession battles then had everything to do with the ‘tyranny of numbers’ that we have heard so much of these days.

Control of the party was important because it determined who would become branch delegates. Just like today where the ‘party owners’ do indeed control who becomes the delegate to the national executive and decide the election dates, Kanu elections were a tightly controlled affair.

Consider what Karimi and Ochieng wrote in relation to how Kanu managed its affairs: “Although the party constitution stipulates that elections be held after every two years, the last national elections (before the post-Kenyatta ones of 1978) were held as long ago as 1966 during the notorious Limuru Conference.” When last did Kanu, ODM, ODM-K, TNA or Ford-Kenya etc hold elections?

These are just some of the realities of Kenyan politics that The Kenyatta Succession forcefully reminds us of.

One won’t miss the irony about Kenya’s history in this book. If corruption is the scourge of our nation, Karimi and Ochieng show that it has been around for some time. It may be a matter of degree and method but not necessarily substance.

Today, a state official may simply embezzle Sh100 million meant for a community project. In 1970 they could just have allocated themselves a state farm or beach plot.

If today state procurement is the biggest drain on public wealth, in the old days one could set up a parastatal, allocate himself a substantial amount of shares in the corporation, appoint his friends on the board and retire quite wealthy.

Then there is that seemingly minor serious matter of a supposed ‘private army’ that the then Attorney-General, Charles Njonjo, in 1978 called Ngoroko. It was alleged that this was a force meant to assassinate some politicians — all as part of the strategy to influence who succeeded the president.

Today we hear of rogue police officers and assassinations in the same breath. Yet not a single ‘rogue’ police officer has ever been arrested and charged with a crime in a Kenyan court of law. Add to this the so-called ‘militias’ owned or supported by politicians and you will understand why violence is twins with Kenyan politics.

In other words, Kenyan politics has never really been about a contest of ideas between competing groups. There has always been a dark shade to it, which explains why before the 1990s, the murder of competitors was an acceptable way of resolving political duels.

The Kenyatta Succession leaves one salivating at what a book on the Moi or Kibaki succession or even the 2017 or the 2022 transitions could contain. What were the last conversations among the Moi or Kibaki ‘kitchen cabinets’ as they sensed power was slipping from their hands?

What do the powerbrokers of today think about Kenya in the next 20 years? And so, to remember Joseph Karimi, and his generation of journos, look for a copy of the book, have a peek into the dark arts of how to take, keep, share, fight over or (ab)use power, or what it means to be in the inner circle of power-holders?