Mark Too ‘Bwana Dawa’ had an ear even for rival legislators

Mark Too, who rose from a humble background to a powerful politician, had immense influence in Kenya and even beyond the continent.

For this he was given nicknames — including “Mr Fix-it”, “Bwana Dawa” (medicine man) and “Chairman”. In some quarters he was quietly referred to as the orkoiyot, the Nandi seer who foretold the coming of a big “snake”, meaning a railway line, in the colonial days.

As a journalist, Too and I became close in early 1980s when he spoke very little English. He would learn English on the job and under private tuition.

Barely from nowhere, he had been appointed to the Lonrho board. As was the fashion at the time, global conglomerates usually went for someone whose phone could be received in State House. In the Jomo Kenyatta era, Lonrho found that link in Woody Gecaga, the son of BM Gecaga.

For Too, owner Tiny Rowland gave him the title of Deputy Chairman of Lonrho East Africa. Since there was no substantive chairman, this made him the de facto boss of the Lonrho empire in the region.

It was Lonrho that sharpened Mark Too’s skills, nurtured his talents and honed his negotiating prowess as he brushed shoulders with white men and women in boardrooms from European and African capitals. Lonrho took him places — from Nairobi to capitals on the continent in Mozambique, Angola and South Sudan, as well as in West Africa and North Africa.

In Mozambique, he unsuccessfully negotiated peace between Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama (still in the bush, from where he controls vast mineral resources) and successive Maputo governments. In Angola, he was in close contact with Jonas Savimbi’s Unita movement.

Too would speak of Dhlakama and Savimbi as leaders without vision and unlikely to broker peace, once unpalatably referring to them as leaders to “futility”.

POLITICAL DEALS

At the height of the SPLA civil war in then-Southern Sudan, he took me to John Garang’s wired residence in Nairobi’s Lavington, where Mama Rebecca Garang resided. From there he spoke to Dr Garang and his generals in South Sudanese bushes. For the first time, I knew about satellite phones.

A close friend of Dr Garang’s, whom he regularly hosted in his Nairobi home, it was in the South Sudanese rather than Dhlakama and Savimbi that Too was hopeful of the end of war — which came to pass with a peace accord negotiated under Kenya’s Lt-Gen Lazarus Sumbeiywo.

Witty to the extent of ameliorating tension among people, Too developed an antenna for both business and political deals.

He saw the potential of minerals in Angola and Mozambique while eyeing oil deposits in South Sudan before its independence. This subsequently generated a lot of interest between Uganda and Kenya on the geography of railways and pipelines.

From this pole position, Too came to know the value of quiet diplomacy. Though he held no position in government, he knew about the visits of foreign leaders and the agenda even before foreign affairs ministers. Foreign leaders were quick to notice his influence and use emissaries to reach him.

Too did not just fix deals for Lonrho but also most Kenyan political and business leaders, earning him the nickname “Mr Fix-it”.

It was in local politics that he earned the “Bwana Dawa” nickname. At the height of the Moi regime — which had institutionalised harambee fundraising as the mode of the country’s development budget — in the 1980s and ’90s, anyone who did not show up at a harambee was seen as anti-development — “adui wa maendeleo” (an enemy of development).

Too’s pockets bulged as only Kanu people seemed to have access to bottomless chests, to the exclusion of opposition politicians, after the 1992 multiparty elections.

Though in Kanu, Too was a man of the people, to whom opposition politicians trooped for a helping — including pecuniary. His generosity was a matter of public knowledge, whereupon nominated MP Ezekiel Barng’etuny remarked in Parliament that any “ailing politician” could always see Mark Too Bwana Dawa and it stuck.

Though not an MP then, Too would stroll into the Parliament lobby in the evenings to “greet MPs and send goodwill messages to their constituencies” during weekend harambees.

POWERFUL POLITICIANS

That put him a notch higher than the most powerful politicians in the Nyayo regime. For instance, his closeness to then-Ford-Kenya leader, former Vice-President Michael Kijana Wamalwa, sustained the unofficial Kanu-Opposition alliance after the death of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga in 1994.

Too’s twin historic contributions to politics and, by extension, unity peaked after the 1997 General Election, when he was nominated to Parliament.
President Daniel arap Moi was too keen to leave the country under Kanu, a party he had told Kenyans would rule for 100 years, and had a secret weapon: His successor.

Too confided ahead of the surprise news a week earlier that other Kanu nominated MPs had been asked to resign but declined. He joked that there was nothing particularly important in the House that would send one to Heaven.

Due to a constitutional limit on nominated MPs that President Moi had exhausted, one had to leave for another to be appointed. And the following week, Too had handed his letter to Speaker Francis ole Kaparo and a simultaneous announcement made from State House that Uhuru Kenyatta had been nominated. With the same swiftness, Uhuru was appointed Minister for Local Government in a Cabinet reshuffle.

The second was when “Bwana Dawa” was among leaders who brokered the short-lived merger of Raila Odinga’s National Development Party (NDP) and Kanu — about which people later joked that he gave an “overdose”.

The script turned to the next page at the venue in Safaricom Stadium, Kasarani, Nairobi. The post of Kanu Vice-President, held by then-VP Professor George Saitoti, was diluted into four positions, excluding the incumbent. It was given to Uhuru and fellow Cabinet Ministers Katana Ngala, Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi.

Moi then went to Cyrus Jirongo’s Lugari Constituency and anointed Uhuru as his successor, splitting Kanu and tossing Too’s contribution to the party into the sea.