Portrait of Matiba as seen through the eyes of a child

There has been a void in my heart since the death of pro-democracy leader Kenneth Matiba in Nairobi last week.

My former MP and my late father’s friend and age-mate was one in a million, the only rich Kenyan I have any respect for.

The 1979 General Election was the first one in my life in which I could tell who was opposing who in Mbiri Constituency, later renamed Kiharu.

The 1932-born Matiba was wrestling the seat from Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano (1926-2013), who had been an MP since 1960.

With his gift of the gab, Dr Kiano was the original cunning wakahare (squirrel) before the current Kiambu governor embraced the moniker in the last General Election as a celebration of his own bad manners and unkempt hair.

CAMPAIGNS

Dr Kiano spat out strings of proverbs through his trademark diastemata and was at the time easily the toast of the old nyakinyua women, who danced gitiiro in praise of his doctorate, the first in the whole of Kenya.

By contrast, the earthy Matiba brought us action, not proverbs, and we were spellbound by the epic amounts of cash he could give in church and school fundraisers.

The difference between the two rivals was stark. The staid Dr Kiano looked old and too serious for life, while the jovial Matiba wa Njindo radiated youthfulness through his huge smile and easy manners.

Mr Matiba was a man of the people. We called him Haiyaiya, from interjections in songs that extolled his greatness and the wonders he was capable of. 

When he came around to see us and speak, stabbing the air with the huge wooden key that was his election symbol, he disembarked from his limo one or two kilometres away from the venue of his rally to run with us the rest of the way.

FUN

Although Dr Kiano was only six years older than Mr Matiba, this was to signal that the astute businessman was the young real deal to entrust our future with, while Dr Kiano was some old fossil from the remote past.

The alleged nationalist and freedom fighter Kiano (“son of Wanjiru”) had some long stories to tell about how great Winston Churchill was; Matiba bought us sodas instead of telling us such stories.

Kiano was Daniel arap Moi’s minister for Water then and we imagined Matiba being made Nyayo’s minister for milk.

We would openly tell Kiano to go to hell the next time he came to narrate to us, as usual without any sodas to wet our young throats, about the greatness of Winston Church-whatever-hell.

If a PhD made you like Dr Kiano, I swore I’d decline any near me — even if it were to be given to me for free.

VOTERS' CARDS
Pitted against Mr Matiba’s vital energies, the flame of the lamp (Dr Kiano’s symbol) could flicker only weakly at night in the mud huts of toothless old villagers.

Along the immense debt of gratitude for his service to the nation, I still owe Mr Matiba 20 bob, which he had given me to get him cigarettes from Gatara shopping centre as he prepared to preside over a church harambee nearby.

As you would expect of a clever boy who was then not the idiot he grew up to become, I immediately melted back home with Matiba’s crisp note, under the tea bushes like a Mau Mau — a good four-hour sprint from the harambee, where I’d come to contribute nothing but to watch the spectacle of Haiyaiya and his big wooden key.

Since Mr Matiba told us to destroy our voters’ cards in 1997, I’ve never bothered to vote for anybody in Kenya.

LEADERS

I don’t see the need to waste my valuable time on cowards, land grabbers, thieves, mass murderers, drunkards, and drug addicts.

I leave such duties to the dirty politicians’ tribal hordes, who do quite a thorough job while at it.

I’ll wait for Matiba’s sign before I ever register as a Kenyan voter again.

Except in one instance in which Mr Matiba misspoke and threatened to expel Asians from the country if he became president, he was a cosmopolitan throughout his life.

One would blame such an unfortunate utterance on his failing health after he suffered a stroke while detained without trial by the Moi regime for leading the clamour for multiparty democracy.

PLUNDER
If you want to survive in Kenyan politics today, my dog Sigmund tells me, don’t dare be as selfless as Mr Matiba was.

Odds would be stacked against you, for the nation has since the mid-1980s been in the stranglehold of international and local cartels out to nip in the bud leaders like him, whose policies are altruistically pro-people.

The only remaining options for us to choose from now are low-life thugs who consider it their prime duty to allow foreign corporations and colonial-day settlers to continue with their plunder of the nation. Even my dog Sigmund knows that.

HEALTHCARE
Once the minister for Health (1983-1988), Mr Matiba would have ensured the healthcare system didn’t collapse had he been allowed to serve there longer.

At least our superrich class wouldn’t need to fly abroad to die there, as the country would be having facilities for all Kenyans to use in times of knee pains.

It is my dog Sigmund who says that about old knees being taken abroad for routine check-ups.

However, the so-called leaders cartels put in charge of the nation are the complete opposite of Mr Matiba.

None of them would die for the ideals Mr Matiba fought for.

The money they give in fundraisers is all stolen or generated through criminal activities.

Prof Mwangi teaches at Northwestern University, US [email protected]. Twitter: @evanmwangi