Herdsboy who became Moi’s Mr Fix-it until Gideon surfaced

nRetired president Daniel Moi (left) and former Nominated MP Mark Too at a Kanu rally at Kurgung High School in Nandi North Districti in 2011. FILE PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA |

What you need to know:

  • Mr Too said the current Baringo County Senator, Gideon Moi, orchestrated his removal from being Kanu nominated MP in favour of Uhuru Kenyatta in 2002.
  • Too said that Gideon told his father that he (Too) had swindled Sh100 million from him, which sent the President into a fit of rage.

Mr Mark Too blamed his forced resignation as a Kanu nominated MP in 2002, in favour of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, on political machinations led by former President Daniel arap Moi’s son, Gideon.

Mr Too, who is expected to be buried in his expansive farm in Eldoret on Monday after he died a week ago, said the current Baringo County Senator, Gideon, orchestrated his removal from the seat.

“I had done well by Moi and the party and I felt it was wrong for them to treat me like that. There were many people they could have chosen, but Gideon picked on me and that was it,” he said.

He said that Gideon told his father that he (Too) had swindled Sh100 million from him, which sent the President into a fit of rage. “He poisoned the President against me. Friends advised me to resign for my safety,” he said. Mr Too’s farm was raided by unknown people who took off with farm equipment and animals.

Nonetheless, Mr Too stuck with President Moi until November 2002, when he defected to the opposition National Rainbow Coalition through which he contested the Eldoret South parliamentary seat, losing narrowly to Mr David Koross of Kanu.

This reporter met Mr Too twice in 2014 for lengthy interviews — first at his home in his 5,000-acre farm in Eldoret and the second time at his home in Milimani Estate, Nakuru — for a special project to mark the 90th birthday celebrations of the former president. 

MOI SHOUTED AT ME

On both occasions, in his trademark earthy humour that had stood him in good stead both in business and in politics, Mr Too talked about everything candidly and extensively; his humble background, his family, his businesses and his quiet diplomatic efforts on behalf of President Moi.

One topic about his relationship with his mentor, which he was at ease talking about, was the long-running rumour that he was Mr Moi’s love child.

He said that he first met Mr Moi in 1968 as a teenage boy herding his father’s cows.

Mr Moi, who had been appointed vice-president the previous year by President Jomo Kenyatta, had come to their location to commission a cattle dip. As he was leaving, there was a heavy downpour and his motorcade got stuck in the mud.

“Mr Moi and his security detail were pushing the cars out of the mud, assisted by a few villagers. I was just watching them from a few meters away, taking care of the cows. Mr Moi shouted at me that I was a bad boy for not assisting them. I was wet and cold and I didn’t feel like helping and so I kept quiet,” he said.

He was in Standard Six at the time and their paths crossed again during his pursuit of secondary education.  He said he performed well in his Certificate of Primary Education exams and his dream was to join Alliance High School but his parents couldn’t afford his school fees.

He sought the help of Mosop MP Gerald Nathaniel Kalya, who was the Nandi Senator from 1964 to 1966, and MP from 1967 to 1974. “I visited Kalya’s office in Nairobi three times asking for help but he did not come through,” he said.

On each of those three occasions, Mr Moi passed by Mr Kalya’s office but seemed not to remember the young man seated in the MP’s visitors lobby. “During the last visit, he stopped and asked me if he knew me from somewhere and I reminded him, quite ashamedly, that I was the young man who refused to push his car out of the mud,” he said.

Well, Mr Moi seemed uninterested in helping him out of his financial trouble this time. That marked the end of his education prospects. He went back home and found a job as a milkman for a local wealthy farmer, Mr Lelei.

FACED OPPOSITION

He then joined the East African Tanning and Extract Company (Eatec), owned by the London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company, Lonrho.

It was here that he discovered the skill that would bring him to the powers that be in the company, and within Kenya’s politics: the ability to talk and convince people. “I was very good with people. I am always jovial and always approachable,” he said.

Lonrho East Africa initially faced a lot of opposition from a section of politicians, especially from the opposition, who doubted its business intentions. Mr Too became an asset to its Kenyan directors whenever they wanted favours from the government.

In time, he was introduced to Lonrhro’s colourful chief executive officer, Mr Roland “Tiny” Rowland, during one of his visits to the country. “He was very impressed by the simple solutions I offered to seemingly complex issues. And I did these things with much humour, which left good feelings on all sides,” he said.

He also started dabbling in local Kanu politics in Nandi district, which brought him in touch with Kanu bigwigs. His connection to Mr Moi would come in handy when he went to his first wife’s family, Mary, to seek her hand in marriage.

“I was a poor young man. I had nothing to my name except hope and she came from a fairly well-off family. They promptly chased me away,” he said with a chuckle. He then sought the assistance of Mr Moi, whom he had become well acquainted with by then. “I knew there was no way they were going to turn me back with the vice-president on my side, he said.

Mr Too was a natural diplomat and his skills came in handy often for Lonrho whenever it tackled worker unrest, political hostility or even civil wars in the countries it operated in Africa. These skills also came in handy for President Moi as he tried to negotiate a hostile environment in which the opposition was ascendant.

As Mr Moi’s political fixer, Mr Too often interacted with key opposition figures and often found himself playing host to bitter enemies. One incident he narrated involved Mr Raila Odinga and Mr Kijana Wamalwa at the height of their fight for control of Ford Kenya in the mid-90s.

“One afternoon in June 1996, Mr Wamalwa paid me a visit at home and stayed all the way to midnight. But at around 9pm, Mr Odinga also came in unannounced. Mr Wamalwa didn’t want to meet him and so he took his whisky bottle and went to the guest bedroom.

I gave Mr Odinga some whisky too, and we started chatting and laughing with him until around 12am when Mr Wamalwa, perhaps feeling he was missing out on the fun, decided to walk into the sitting room. I expected fireworks, but I was stunned when Mr Odinga got up and embraced him, calling him ‘my brother’. Both ended up weeping like small children,” he said.

IMPROVE RELATIONS

The alcohol-induced camaraderie did not last beyond the evening. In December 1996, Mr Odinga abandoned Ford Kenya to form the National Development Party and secured the election of 21 MPs during the 1997 General Election.

But not all of Mr Too’s diplomatic efforts ended positively. He told of his failed efforts to improve relations between President Moi and President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda when Mr Museveni came to power.

Mr Moi believed that Mr Museveni, who took office in 1986 after waging a successful guerrilla war against President Milton Obote, was supporting and hosting opposition dissidents whom, he said, were keen on overthrowing his government.

Mr Too said he travelled to Kampala in 1989 to meet Mr Museveni with a suggestion on how to end the hostilities. But after the greetings and the niceties, Mr Museveni pulled from a drawer an envelope which contained a cheque.

“It was a cheque of Sh100,000 from the Kenya Commercial Bank. Mr Museveni asked me if I recognised the signature and I said yes, it belongs to Mr Bethwell Kiplagat, who was the permanent secretary in the ministry of Foreign Affairs. He said his intelligence officers had confiscated the cheque from four Kenyan security agents who had entered Uganda illegally.

“He told me the four were on their way to meet Ugandan dissidents when they were caught. I was stunned! I had to plead with him that I knew nothing of this. I felt betrayed. I asked him about the four agents and he told me: ‘We have dealt with them.’ I felt sick. I came back to Nairobi furious and humiliated and I told President Moi as much. He was badly shaken by the fate of the four agents and realised that the situation could easily get ugly if he did not step back from it all,” he said.

Mr Too felt that his skills were still necessary in today’s political environment but was disappointed that they seemed unwanted by the current administration.

“They feel that I am too old, perhaps not educated enough for them,” he said wistfully.