When power of the pen spoiled the day for Daniel Moi

As President Daniel Moi rose to speak at the 1987 New Year eve bash at State House, Nakuru, the winds were in his favour and his sails full.

At home, he not only had read but acted the Prince in Machiavelli’s book; he also had memorised whole chapters of Robert Greene’s "48 Laws of Power".

Before he became President, a Bible given to him by a white missionary, Rev Albert Barnett, the man from whom his home town Kabarnet in Baringo County got its name, was the only book on his bedroom table.

On becoming President, only two other books became part of his night reading. A copy of Machiavelli’s "The Prince" given to him by politician Wanguhu Ng’ang’a, and the volume on "The 48 Laws of Power" brought to his attention by his personal physician, Dr David Silverstein.

Like the Prince in Machiavelli, his first task on becoming President was to politically castrate all those who had helped him take the throne.

KIBAKI

The first victims were long serving Attorney-General Charles Njonjo and politician GG Kariuki.

After they had helped him cross the bridge to power, the two believed they were co-shareholders in the presidency and behaved as much. They would ride in the President’s limousine as if it were a State House matatu.

It took the intervention of the Intelligence head James Kanyotu to stop them on the reasoning that it had become a challenge for the presidential guards to properly take care of boss as they never could tell from which door of his car he would emerge.

When Mr Moi was done with the pair, they never knew what hit them.

Next was his first Vice-President Mwai Kibaki. When the latter saw the spear coming, he ran away to the safety of Muthaiga Golf Club and made Tusker his friend.

If you dared bring up a political topic in his presence, he pointed to a label on the Tusker bottle that reads: “Beer Only.”

KANU

On shedding off baggage from the past, President Moi was off into a new project – breathing life into the moribund but only political party in the country, Kanu, which he converted into a personal utility vehicle for terror.

He did so by creating tin gods in the name of district Kanu chairmen who he gave power of political life and death.

In Nakuru, his instrument for terror was a rusty old man called Kariuki Chotara.

When the latter heard that the university community was giving trouble to the boss because of something called Marxism and owned by a man called Karl Marx, he said he’d dispatch party youth-wingers to Nairobi to perpendicularly deal with that Karl Marx “devil of a man”.

And when told dialogue is what university students were agitating for, he said they should be given two of the “dialogues” every morning. To him dialogue was chapati.

DISRESPECT

Elsewhere in Mombasa, the tin god was one Shariff Nassir. On one Madaraka Day, he’d decreed that no vehicle would be allowed in any of Mombasa streets until he was done making his speech.

Another of the Kanu deities in Kirinyiga by the name James Njiru had made political eunuch of his opponent, one Nahashon Njuno, on account that the latter hadn’t raised his finger high enough when saying Mtukufu Rais juu juu zaidi!

And in Nyandarua, politician Kimani wa Nyoike had been confined to the political dustbin for the “offence” that a school choir had sang in his praise a song Tawala Kenya Tawala, which supposedly was a special one only reserved for His Excellency the Boss.

As for independent institutions, Mr Moi had repeatedly told MPs that they had to “sing after him like parrots” and that each one of them “was a balloon he could inflate and deflate as he wished”.

He had removed the constitutional security of tenure for the Attorney-General and the Public Service Commission, and would soon do the same for High Court judges.

Next he pounced on citizens’ right to freely elect their leaders when he decreed that voting would be through a queuing system, and a person with the shortest queue would be declared winner if in the right books at State House.

OYUGI

When opposition was voiced about the queuing system, Mr Moi had Shariff Nassir declare that the system would be introduced wapende, wasipende (whether they like it or not)!

He went ahead to say that Kanu would be summoning for grilling and punishment religious leaders who didn’t bow down for the Kanu god!

To cap it, President Moi had elevated one Hezekiah Oyugi, his Permanent Secretary for Internal Security, and given him a blank cheque to reign terror on any whiff of real or imagined opposition to the Big Man.

Oyugi went ahead to create a parallel rogue police system to maim or kill in the name of defending the system, even when the system in this case was his personal interest or that of one of his many mistresses!

Internationally, Kenya had made good buddies with some unsavoury characters like Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, 'killer of Addis' Mengistu Haile Mariam, and Zaire’s (now DRC) self-declared cock of the cocks, Mobutu Sese Seko, among others.

ALLIES

Courtesy of the friendship with Romanian Big Man, better known as Butcher of Bucharest (his country’s capital), Hezekiah Oyugi had dispatched some of his “boys” for advanced training in torture and execution.

Meanwhile, President Moi also had taken political insurance cover in Kenya’s most powerful backers, the “Iron Lady” of Britain Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and US Cowboy President Ronald Reagan.

It was in the course of the dalliance with the Western powers that President Moi was invited to Washington and feted at the White House by President Reagan.

In toasting the Kenyan head of state, President Reagan on March 12, 1987 described Mr Moi as “one of our best friends in the African continent”.

But thousands of miles away in Nairobi, on the same day Mr Moi was feted at the White House, the Africa correspondent for the widely circulated and authoritative US newspaper, the Washington Post, Mr Blaine Harden, filed a story on how President Moi had made Kenya a police state and listed torture as an item in the country’s menu.

MWAKENYA

The journalist dwelt on the sadistic treatment of alleged members of a subversive movement called Mwakenya, and torture and detention without trial of human rights lawyer Gibson Kamau Kuria, who had gone to court to demand the release of some of the Mwakenya suspects held incommunicado for three months.

Early in the morning of March 13, 1987, the Washington Post carried on page one the picture of a smiling President Moi making toasts with his host President Reagan.

But just below it was a lengthy story on human rights transgressions in Kenya. The story abruptly brought down Mr Moi from cloud nine to the gates of hell.

Authorities in Washington cancelled his scheduled appointments and demanded his government come clean on the Washington Post story. An appointment with UN secretary-general in New York was also cancelled.

BAD MOOD

President Moi had to abruptly cut short his trip and return home. On the plane to Nairobi, he was in a foul mood.

A senior government official in his delegation would years later tell me that on the flight home, nobody wanted to be near the President for fear that he would ventilate his anger by breaking their skulls with his trademark rungu.

Kenyan authorities cancelled the work permit for the Nairobi-based Washington Post reporter.

But, once again, President Moi was forced to eat humble pie unpeeled when the US state department said it wouldn’t take kindly expulsion of the journalist from Nairobi.

President Moi personally telephoned journalist Blaine Harden for a chat at State House where he extended his work permit by two years. The pen had won over the rungu.

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