Fertiliser politics: How Kenya’s bid for a factory was sabotaged

It was 5pm on Friday, July 29, 1977. A call was placed to the US Embassy in Nairobi by American businessman Kenneth Slocum, who was stationed in Mombasa supervising the construction of Kenya’s fertiliser factory.

Mr Slocum was in a panic, nay livid, according to confidential documents filed by the embassy. Some 30 minutes earlier, Mr Slocum had received a call from an immigration official who asked him to urgently fly to Nairobi that evening for a meeting with the powerful head of the Immigration Department Jonathan Njenga.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

Mr Njenga had been known to deport anyone who crossed the path of powerful buccaneers in the regime of President Jomo Kenyatta and Mr Slocum, like others before him, knew his time had come.

It all had to do with the fertiliser factory that he was building in Mombasa as a joint venture between the Kenyan government and the Cincinnati Ohio-based N-Ren Chemicals and its Bermuda-registered subsidiary, N-Ren International.

The person who delivered the message was clear that Mr Slocum had to return to Nairobi that evening — and left no room for negotiation. Moreover, the message-bearer was emphatic that the meeting would not be postponed and would take place at the airport.

“The scenario bore all the earmarks of the midnight special,” wrote the US ambassador, Wilbert John Lemelle, in a note to President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Midnight Special was in reference to a popular late-night show in the US.

According to Mr Slocum, and the US embassy told Cyrus Vance as much, “his difficulties (emanated) from politically prominent Kenyans who have vested interest in present imports of fertilisers that would be shut off once Ken-Ren plant begins to operate.”

Ken-Ren board chairman James S. Mburu, who has since died, was reported to have come “under pressure from these parties (and) has developed personal antagonism to Slocum’s activities.”

Even today, it has never been made clear why government officials were sabotaging a project that was 65 per cent owned by the State.

PASSPORT TAKEN

When the project was mooted, it had been agreed that Mr Slocum would be the managing director but when the call came, it was the local politics at play.

Eliud Mahihu, the Coast Provincial Commissioner and a great supporter of the project, was at his home when he learnt of Mr Slocum’s predicament. And before Mr Slocum organised to fly from Mombasa, he got a call from Mr Mahihu who assured him that he would seek attorney General Charles Njonjo’s intervention. Unable to reach Mr Njonjo, by then a powerful figure in the Kenyatta government, Mr Mahihu did not pursue the matter and Mr Slocum headed to the airport with his wife, two children and the US deputy chief of mission, who had been asked to cut short his leave in Mombasa.

By then Kenya was going through a fertiliser price crisis and traders were making a kill out of it. The high price mark ups had affected the agriculture industry. Between 1972 and 1973, fertiliser prices had climbed by 75 per cent, forcing many farmers into subsistence production. Following the oil crisis of 1973, availability of cheap fertiliser became a major government concern, and during the Jamhuri Day celebrations of 1973, Mzee Kenyatta announced that Kenya would build its own fertiliser factory.

But three-and-a-half years later, the man who had been brought to supervise the construction was on his way out of Kenya. At the airport, six officers from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), then headed by the abrasive policeman Ignatius Nderi, were waiting for Mr Slocum’s plane to land. But on seeing US embassy officials, they said they had “received orders” to escort him to his Nairobi residence “and to search baggage and residence for company documents”. At 2am, the search ended and Mr Slocum was asked to report to the CID headquarters. Another search was done in his office and his passport was taken — as efforts to send a message that he should leave started.

DUST TO SETTLE

It was Mr Mburu, the Ken-Ren board chairman, who would write a letter barring Mr Slocum from the Ken-Ren premises. That day, junior immigration officers called Mr Slocum and told him that he would not be deported — explaining the difference between “formal deportation” which had to be signed by the Minister for Home Affairs, who was then Vice-President Daniel arap Moi, and an “informal request to leave”.

Mr Slocum knew he could not win the fertiliser war.

“As the meeting progressed, it became apparent that Slocum was being gently told to depart from Kenya and that if he made effort to comply, by starting to arrange his personal affairs, he would in all probability be permitted to leave quietly and gracefully.”

The following day, after failing to get the hint, Mr Slocum was summoned by Mr Njenga, the Principal Immigration Officer. Also summoned from Brussels was N-Ren Chief Executive Forest Lombaer. The message was simple: Mr Slocum had to leave Kenya within 48 hours and according to Mr Njenga, he would be allowed back “after the dust settles.”

With no indicator on how long it will take for the dust to settle, Mr Njenga told embassy officials that he was “delivering instructions” from some unnamed parties.

On August 4, and within Mr Njenga’s deadline — Mr Slocum flew out and any attempt to build a fertiliser factory ended there.

Before he left, he was interrogated by Joginder Singh Sokhi, a CID assistant commissioner, who claimed that Mr Slocum had stolen $250,000 (Sh25 million at current exchange rates) from the company. He was told that since investigations had only commenced on the theft, he would be pursued later — meaning “you have a chance to flee!”