When Moi men didn’t think much of Uhuru presidency

President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • President Moi’s surprise choice of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta as his preferred successor in 2002 gave me first-hand knowledge of this trait of concealing his intentions.
  • I was surprised that President Moi’s key confidante believed courting Mr Kenyatta was an exercise in futility.
  • Mr Kenyatta had been nominated to Parliament and appointed to the Cabinet in the influential post of Minister for Local Government — ironically replacing Mr Joseph Kamotho.

One of President Daniel Moi’s most remarkable characters was the ability to conceal his real intentions even to the closest of confidants.

That would perhaps explain why he stayed in power for 24 years after supposedly being dismissed as “a passing cloud” when he took over following the death of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1978.

President Moi’s surprise choice of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta as his preferred successor in 2002 gave me first-hand knowledge of this trait of concealing his intentions.

My first experience was a meeting with Baringo Kanu executive officer Hoseah Kiplagat. At the time, President Moi was slowly and stealthily pulling the young Mr Kenyatta to Kanu’s power circle. He had just carved out Thika District from the larger Kiambu and imposed the young man as the Kanu chairman — quite a worthwhile position at the time.

Mr Kiplagat was an insider in the Moi government as any could get. He may have had some low-sounding title but sometimes this was deceptive in Moi’s Kenya.

What mattered is how close you were to the inner sanctum. And Mr Kiplagat was.

HAVING CUP OF TEA

On this particular day I was having a cup of tea with Mr Kiplagat by the pool side of the Mayfair Hotel in Westlands.

Suddenly, a skinny young man in khaki trousers and a checked coat appeared in the horizon.

My host immediately grabbed a newspaper and got engrossed in it facing the other side so that the young man couldn’t notice him.

But the young man wasn’t bothered with us, settling at a far corner where he enjoyed his cigarettes.

“That is Uhuru Kenyatta. I didn’t want him to see me,” my host told me. Out of curiosity, and aware of Mr Kenyatta’s flirtation with Kanu, I asked him why so.

“You know, somebody is lying to Mzee (President Moi) that the Kenyatta family can be in Kanu. Those are DP (Democratic Party) people.”

DOMINANT POLITICAL OUTFIT

At the time, Mr Mwai Kibaki’s DP was the dominant political outfit in Central Kenya. Mr Kenyatta’s uncle George Muhoho, and cousins Beth Mugo and Ngengi Muigai, were key Kibaki allies.

I was surprised that President Moi’s key confidante believed courting Mr Kenyatta was an exercise in futility.

My next insight on how Mr Kenyatta was viewed by President Moi’s inner circle came when I visited powerful Kanu Secretary-General and Minister for Education Joseph Kamotho, at his Jogoo House office in Nairobi.

As I sat with other visitors at the reception waiting for our turn to be called in, Mr Kenyatta walked in accompanied by his trusted political aide David Kigochi, now the chairman of the Farmers Party of Kenya.

There were no special protocols to welcome him, despite his family links and rising profile.

CROWDED RECEPTION

Mr Kenyatta sat with us in the crowded reception. Occasionally, he would move to the corridor for a quick puff. I was called in to see Mr Kamotho before him.

Later when I asked Mr Kamotho’s Personal Assistant Johnson Gakungu why the cold shoulder, he replied: “What’s the big deal about him? He is a Kanu chairman like any other!”

Five years later in 2002, the wheel had turned full circle. Mr Kenyatta had been nominated to Parliament and appointed to the Cabinet in the influential post of Minister for Local Government — ironically replacing Mr Kamotho, who went to the less glamorous Environment ministry.

It had been followed by the famous March 18, 2002, Kanu coup where, among other key changes, Mr Kamotho was replaced as secretary-general and Mr Kenyatta anointed one of the four national vice-chairmen.

Surprisingly, up to this time Mr Kamotho never believed President Moi intended to bulldoze Mr Kenyatta as the successor.

BIGGER THINGS
During one visit to his office, I told him: “We in the media are convinced Moi wants Uhuru as his successor, not George Saitoti, the Vice-President.”

His reply, in Kikuyu, was intriguing: “Kihii gititumagwo uthoni! (You don’t send an uninitiated boy to bridal negotiations!)”

He first gave me this quote in an exclusive interview published in the Daily Nation just before the 2002 election.

By now, all indications were that President Moi had bigger things for Mr Kenyatta. But when I asked another insider, Mr Samuel Gichuru, Managing Director of the Kenya Power and Lighting Company, his script was similar to Mr Kamotho’s. 

“Is it true Moi is grooming Uhuru for the big office?” I asked. “I don’t think so,” Mr Gichuru replied. “I think he wants the young man to play a high-profile role in politics, but not the President.”
“So Saitoti it is?”

“I have no reason to doubt that,” replied Gichuru.

But Mr Kenyatta was eventually declared the 2002 Kanu presidential candidate. He went on to lose to Narc’s Mr Kibaki. The rest is history.

***
Postscript: Several years later, I asked Mr Kamotho how come the President had fooled everyone in his inner circle about Mr Kenyatta. “Were you in a state of denial?”

INVITED FOR DINNER
This was his reply: “In retrospect, I think some of us may have been in denial. There were several hints Moi let out and which should have forewarned us of the direction he intended to take.”

He gave me examples: Weeks after Joseph Kabila took over as President of the Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2001, President Moi was touring Central Kenya in the company of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Kamotho, among other leaders.

During a stop-over at Sagana market, Mr Kamotho recalled the President saying: “The young son of Kabila (the late Laurent Kabila) is now the President of the DRC. Who says this young man here Uhuru can’t be President like his father!”

Another hint Mr Kamotho remembered was when he was invited for dinner in the President’s private Nairobi home. As the two had a meal, Mr Moi, all of a sudden, asked: “This friend of yours Saitoti (Vice-President), is he serious he wants to take over when I retire?”

When Mr Kamotho replied in the affirmative, Mr Moi said: “But how come he wants me to do everything for him? He has no friends and doesn’t want to spend his own money!”

As Mr Kamotho made to defend his friend, the President cut short the discussion and pretended it was a non-issue.