Wako: Is the lucky ‘angel’ headed for a fall?

Members of the Cabinet during the Moi regime lived one day at a time, hoping and praying that the one o’clock news on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) did not have anything to do with Cabinet changes.

Yet former Attorney General Amos Wako, the man who wears the “deceptively baby-faced smile”, according to lawyer Paul Mwangi, not only survived unscathed for 11 years under Moi but a further nine as the chief legal adviser in President Mwai Kibaki’s administration.

Surviving two presidents for 20 years and then getting elected to the Senate for two terms increased his sense of invincibility.

But Mr Wako may finally have run out of luck as he faces the greatest challenge to his public life: being globally named and shamed by the US as having involved himself in “significant corruption”.

The announcement on November 18 that he, his wife Flora Ngaira and his son, Julius Wako, had been banned from entering the US because of the allegations of graft calls to mind the Kenya Human Rights Commission’s (KHRC) characterisation of the former Attorney General as “The Fallen Angel”.

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The KHRC had assigned the characterisation after Mr Wako, as Attorney General, turned a blind eye to numerous corruption and human rights abuses and immersed himself in ensuring the survival of the Moi regime.

He has also been accused of failing to prosecute Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing suspects or filing weak cases against the suspects.

Former US ambassador to Nairobi Michael Ranneberger, in one of the leaked diplomatic cables in which he recommended that Mr Wako’s US visa be withdrawn, lamented “public corruption through interference with judicial and other public processes”.

“By obstructing due process and committing corrupt acts, Mr Wako has repeatedly demonstrated that he is an obstacle to reforms in Kenya and a major contributor to the country’s culture of impunity. As a result, he is a pillar standing against vital US interests in Kenya,” Mr Ranneberger wrote in the September 1, 2009 diplomatic cable.

Mr Wako has refuted the corruption allegations and accused the US of reviving accusations of 10 years ago when he was first banned from entering the US.

“It is an old story being resuscitated for reasons best known to them. Instead of dealing with developments since the travel ban 10 years ago, one wonders why a travel ban should be issued when there is already one in place issued 10 years ago based on the same reasons,” Mr Wako said.

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Born in 1946, Mr Wako holds three degrees – two in law, a bachelor and a master’s degree, and one in economics. He is also a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

He serves as a member of the International Law Commission, a UN body charged with the promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification. His current term ends in 2021.

For 20 years, he headed the State Law Office at a time when the office performed the roles of being chief legal adviser to the government and also headed public prosecutions.

The dual roles made the office one of the most powerful in government. The tens of thousands of Kenyans born in the early 1990s grew up knowing just one Attorney General.

It was not until the promulgation of the 2010 constitution that Mr Wako was forced to leave.

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How Mr Wako was able to survive the personnel upheavals in both Moi and Kibaki administrations is a question that baffles many.

In an opinion piece published in the Daily Nation on October 30, 2009, adviser to former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Paul Mwangi, wrote of the folly of underrating Mr Wako.

“The commonest error made by almost all critics of Mr Amos Wako is to underrate him. Yet Mr Amos Shitswila Wako is one of the most intelligent people and a very smart lawyer indeed. And because people judge him by his deceptively baby-faced smile and affected moronic demeanour, he outwits them all the time,” Mr Mwangi wrote.

After leaving the State Law Office, Mr Wako quickly transformed into a politician and in 2013 won the Busia Senate seat.

He retained the seat after the 2017 elections. He is currently a member of the Building Bridges for National Unity Advisory Task Force, a product of the March 8 unity pact between President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga.