Moi handed back power to terrify victims

Daniel arap Moi must have been one of the luckiest dictators to ever walk the earth.

On Wednesday, February 12, the man who presided over a reign of terror in Kenya for 24 years will be accorded a State funeral complete with military honours.

Since his death last week, Kenyans have been observing a period of national mourning decreed by President Uhuru Kenyatta, with the national flag flying at half mast.

The body is currently lying in State in Parliament. Yet in another country, Moi could have died a disgraced man, most probably in jail or exile.

For much of the 24 years he ruled Kenya, his cruel regime looted the country’s resources, condemned communities to poverty, and jailed and tortured dissenters, forced some into exile and destroyed families.

Confronted with the wave of pro-democracy movements that swept Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he reluctantly accepted a change to pluralism.

'MOIBUTU'

But to preserve himself in power for another 10 years, he continued his reign of terror, instigating ethnic clashes in the then Rift Valley, Nyanza and Coast provinces.

That last act of Moi cruelty produced some of the most horrific scenes of human suffering imaginable: houses set on fire by marauding tribal warriors, hundreds of thousands of families uprooted from their homes and innocent people, including children, lying in hospital beds with poisoned arrows lodged in their skulls.

By this time, opposition politicians, emboldened by the repeal of Section 2A of the Constitution to allow membership of parties other than Moi’s Kanu, labelled him ‘Moibutu’ – a political mongrel with the monstrous traits of Mobutu Sese Seko, the other African dictator who plundered his country Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and ruled with an iron fist as well.

A shameless dictator, he kept to his routine of attending church services on Sundays despite so much blood dripping from his hands.

So reviled was he among the majority of Kenyans that on the day he showed up at Nairobi’s Uhuru Park to hand over power to his predecessor, Mwai Kibaki, a section of the crowd threw mud at him.

FOND MEMORIES

He spent the past 17 years of retirement largely ostracised from public life.

But in keeping with the African tradition of not saying anything bad about the dead, Kenyans have typically expressed only fond memories of him.

The problem is that the fake celebration of Moi has unwittingly handed him back the power to terrify and silence his victims one last time.

The brave ones like the daughter of Wanyiri Kihoro, the lawyer and former Nyeri Town Member of Parliament who was detained and tortured at Nyayo House and later forced into exile, have taken to social media to narrate how the Moi regime destroyed their families.

But even they have to be apologetic for spoiling the national mourning mood. The lucky dictator from Sacho has had the last word!

[email protected]. @otienootieno