Eroding painful memories with tears for fallen hardmen

On Friday, a 79-year-old former security minister who once rode in the president’s limousine was buried; today, a 67-year-old presidential bruiser goes to rest; and next week, perhaps another 77-year-old presidential confidant will be interred.

Grief has gripped Kenya in the wake of zero chill men who presided over the country’s safety and stability passing on. Their deaths – from cardiac arrests and cancer – are all the more painful coming as they do after crossing the country’s top-line life expectancy mark of 62 years.

LOCAL GANGSTER

Geoffrey Gitahi Kariuki was Security minister when government forces, acting on the premise of flushing out a local gangster known as Abdi Madobe, set fire to Bulla Kartasi, a residential village is Garissa, killing people and raping women. The local population was contained at Garissa Primary School football pitch for three days without water or food, resulting in more than 3,000 deaths. The Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission said Kariuki should take responsibility for that.

Retired Major-General Nkaissery was Security minister when Kenya topped the African charts for extrajudicial executions. Last year alone, Amnesty International ranked Kenya as having recorded 122 of Africa’s 177 deaths at police hands. For this achievement, he should be greatly missed in death, as he had overcome allegations in the TJRC of participating in the Lotirir massacre to be approved by Parliament for appointment as Cabinet Secretary.

FALL GUY

Although Nicholas Biwott was never the Security minister, he was the fall guy for all the things that went wrong under Daniel arap Moi’s 24-year presidency. As it were, he was the only minister ever arrested in connection with the death of a fellow member of the Cabinet, Dr Robert Ouko, who appears to have shot himself in the foot, drank petrol and set his body aflame. Biwott goes to his grave leaving behind not a trace of evidence about the death of Ouko, and insinuations in the TJRC report about his involvement in the Likoni clashes of 1997 a forgotten memory.

Not all deaths are the same – some are marked with wailing, and others in stunned silence. Only two months ago, there was a tearless funeral for 18-year-old Claire Njoki Kiboi when she was buried in Murang’a. She met her end in a hail of police bullets in Nairobi’s Kayole area because she was suspected to be Nairobi’s Prettiest Thug.

SHOT MAN

Three months ago, in April, a police officer dragged a young man from a crowd, laid him on the tarmac in full public view in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area and shot him. Uncertain if he was still alive, he asked for a gun from his colleague and finished off the job. On Facebook, anonymous police officers still post pictures of suspects whom they warn to leave town, and before you can sign into the next session, their bodies are sprawled in finality.

Since Kenyans are squeamish, it is best that hard men who can take tough decisions dispatch people needing to die young.

NOT OFFICIAL

Killings may occur accidentally, but that cannot be the official policy of the Kenya government. Last year, President Uhuru Kenyatta commuted the death sentences of all 2,747 people convicted to hang for murder or violent robbery to life in prison. His predecessor, President Mwai Kibaki, had no heart for blood, either, and in August 2009 commuted the sentences of 4,000 death-row inmates to life in prison. Even though the death penalty remains on the law books, Kenya has not legally executed anybody for over 30 years.

If the presidents Kenya has do not have the stomach to do their duty, those willing to serve their country must be repaid with honour.

Refusing to mourn people who have held important public office is ungrateful and should be punished as a high crime. Grieving together strengthens the nation’s value system, affirming mores of practice in silence.

Kwamchetsi Makokha is the programme advisor at Journalists for Justice.

The views expressed here are his own and do not represent those of JfJ.

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