All the second president’s men, his major flops and milestones

Three major milestones marked the 24-year rule of former President Daniel arap Moi. The first was the 1982 failed coup, which brought a drastic change of manner in Moi. The camaraderie he had displayed with ministers and other top officials since succeeding Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in 1978 evaporated. He became insular, and some say, paranoid.
The second event was the ouster of Charles Njonjo in 1983. As Moi’s biographer, Andrew Morton, noted, there was no way Moi or anybody in his position could have co-existed indefinitely with a Grand Vizier who played at being co-president. Something had to give, meaning Njonjo had to go. His departure brought a major reorganisation of government. Radical initiatives like the so-called District Focus for Rural Development were unveiled. These were more in line with Moi’s old, Kadu ‘majimboist’ worldview.
Njonjo’s removal from power also led to an important development. Regional ties were re-assessed, leading to a historic summit in Arusha with Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere. The seed for the eventual revival of the East African Community was planted. Tanzania had always blamed Njonjo for the EAC’s break-up, a point supported by the minister responsible for the body on the Kenyan side, Dr Robert Ouko. (Ouko’s later brutal murder, exactly 30 years ago, looked pointless. A former US assistant secretary of state, Herman Cohen, noted in a memoir that Ouko had, during the fateful 1990 presidential visit to Washington, met – alone – with President George H. W. Bush, though Cohen failed to read the meeting’s fatal significance).
The third milestone was the transition to multi-party politics in 1991. Moi had fought the change viciously. His hand was finally forced by the cut-off of donor aid that year. Nyerere had read the global mood better and was urging his countrymen to embrace political pluralism. To enable Kanu win the 1992 elections, massive raids into state coffers through scams like Goldenberg were dreamed up. The economy, already limping, went to the dogs.
I first encountered Moi – live – in high school. He had come for a fundraiser. His interaction with us young pupils was affectionate and generous. His passion for education, which he furthered through building and expanding countless schools, will remain one of his greatest achievements. I recall reading from his biographer that he entered politics in 1955 with great reluctance because teaching was the career he greatly loved.
His style of governance was quirky. He believed in non-stop harambees. When there was a problem, his solution was to call a harambee. The harambees seemed to have substituted for any coherent development policy, which is why his successor Mwai Kibaki discontinued them. His homespun Nyayo slogan of peace, love and unity however did not stop young educated Kenyans who felt marginalised by the new policies from migrating in large numbers to seek better opportunities in the United States.
Moi’s favourite foreign leader was Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. He was grateful she stood by him when the West started to shun him. It is a testament to this admiration that the Moi University library was named after her. The other foreign leader he had a soft spot for was Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, whose Christian ethos Moi shared. When Kaunda lost elections in 1991, Moi brought him over for a holiday in Maasai Mara to recover.
Moi’s relationship with Yoweri Museveni oscillated from cordial to cold. Things were particularly testy in the late 80s, when Uganda facilitated the flight of dissidents into exile through Kampala. Matters got nasty again in 1990 when Ugandan-based Rwandan exiles invaded Rwanda, and when in 1994 they ousted the regime that took over from the assassinated Juvenal Habyarimama in the aftermath of the genocide. Moi read Museveni’s hand in this takeover. In fact the Moi regime, and a few others like the Kingdom of Morocco, were the only ones to oppose the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko, which was executed by Ugandan and Rwandan forces.
There’s a recurring myth that Moi separated with his wife Lena because she refused to dance with Mzee Kenyatta during a state function. However, lawyers who got wind of the divorce case cite a deeply personal and poignant reason for the separation.
Throughout his life, Moi was a deeply committed Christian. It is a matter of some irony that the organisations that fought his one-party autocracy most determinedly were fellow Christian travellers – the Anglicans, the Presbyterians and, to a considerable extent – the Catholics. The barbaric rigging of the 1988 mlolongo elections marked the beginning of the end for the dictatorship. Reformers across the board concluded change was inevitable. History will reckon with Nyayoism’s role in the subsequent 1990, 1991 and 1997 politically-instigated clashes.
It is said the buddies that always got Moi into stitches were Mulu Mutisya, Ezekiel Barg’entuny, Mark Too and Fred Gumo. Of these court jesters, only Gumo remains alive today.