Charles Njonjo deliberately tried to cover up the truth

Charles Njonjo during a past interview. FILE PHOTO |

What you need to know:

  • Njonjo kept the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of his colleagues, politicians, independent lawyers and intellectuals.
  • Perhaps Sir Charles should seek divine intervention and repentance for the misdeeds and misrule that attended his realm.

Charles Njonjo’s interview in the Sunday Nation (May 24, 2015) bears statements that are false and diversionary of his brazen role in violating people’s rights.

If Njonjo’s responses were not pregnant with latent and deliberate suppression of material facts, one would dismiss them as a mere hilarious comedy.

The interview reveals a deliberate scheme to conceal material facts, systematic misuse of power and aberration of citizens’ rights.

Coming from a colonial collaborative background, Njonjo’s known aversion and ridicule to those rights is apparent and well documented.

Sample this excerpt: “You know, I miss the discipline of that time. I miss the power I had, power that I could use for the common good. I miss the nation that we had then, a strong nation. There is nothing that went on that we didn’t know about; we had the proverbial long arm of the law. We were always two steps ahead, we knew that conversation you had in your house the previous night. What happened in Garissa recently would never have happened because we had total control of security”.

These assertions are hypocritical and a distortional inventive. During his watch as Attorney-General, he schemed to make a “white” and “brown” Judiciary subservient and answerable to him.

He ruthlessly manipulated prosecutorial powers and used the same to blackmail his perceived enemies. He ridiculed and humiliated African professionals.

ONE PARTY STATE

What experience did Njonjo have when he was appointed AG at independence, having abruptly risen from Crown Counsel and when he had not prosecuted or handled a single court brief?

Njonjo kept the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of his colleagues, politicians, independent lawyers and intellectuals. The infamous Section 2A was introduced to secure one party state and forestall the prospects of competitive politics and divergent views.

Njonjo’s realm is awash with intrigues in manipulated investigations, abuse of office, bad governance, fabricated and stage-managed prosecutions and compounding of crimes.

A US Marine, Sundstrom, was given a Sh500 conditional bond for the murder of an African girl and not a word of protest from Njonjo! Because the victim was African! Conspiracies to defeat justice are galore.

To disabuse Njonjo’s pretensions to the use of power for the “common good”, a few pertinent questions demonstrate the reverse: Were Mutua and Njenga fall guys in Pinto’s and Tom Mboya’s murders respectively and Kenyans hoodwinked to believe that the ends of justice were achieved?

Was Mboya shot by a marksman who immediately drove off having passed on the gun to Njenga? Was Mboya’s telephone call to Chhani’s Pharmacy tapped to scale the time of his arrival and position assassin(s) in the proximity? Who would have the technological capability to tap telephone landlines at that age and time? Were investigations leading to the recovery of the murder weapon in Jericho within 24 hours of the event stage-managed? Were material eye-witnesses at the crime scene intimidated or threatened and deliberately omitted from the witness list so as not to reveal the real snapper?

Who was the so-called “big man” bearing in mind that Mboya was not a threat to Jomo Kenyatta’s presidency as the latter could not succeed himself in any event? Who was the likely beneficiary of Mboya’s death that could not rival his political acumen or competitive election? Why was Njenga’s trial so hurriedly conducted? Was he swiftly executed so as to prevent him from spilling the beans by “naming names”?

The defence counsel, SM Waruhiu, told the Nation before his death that his instructions and fees were borne by a known third party not related or affiliated to Njenga.

The upshot of the whole Njonjo interview is an epitome of a frustrated “Esmerado” with delusory nostalgia for the privileged past hoping that the skeletons in the closet will not be revealed.

The silence and inertia by Kenyans in not seeking answers to events in Njonjo’s realm may have duped him to develop some impunity. But the answers thereof are not time barred. Perhaps Sir Charles should seek divine intervention and repentance for the misdeeds and misrule that attended his realm.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court [email protected]