Fare thee well, father of Kenya’s second liberation!

I first met Charles Wanyoike Rubia for an interview on Dr Fackson Kagwe’s biography, A Lawyer For Our Times, which I was working on. Kagwe, a veteran lawyer, had Rubia among his list of prominent clients.

They come from Kandara, Murang’a, and their families know each other well, which accounted for their camaraderie.

During the interview, I was struck by Rubia’s command of the Queen’s language.

“Everything is about interest and effort. I realised English was going to be the language of business long before independence,” he said.

And his long public life?

“A fortunate stroke of serendipity,” he told me.

Rubia initially worked as a clerk in the British EA postal service and later ventured into business in the Eastland areas of Bahati, Maringo and Makadara. He then became an alderman (councillor). All these in pre-independent Kenya!

There was something about those steely eyes that told a story much bigger than his small frame.

They spoke of a disciplined and stubborn resolve, the kind promoted in the military. Yet Rubia was not from the army. But this was the kind of resolve that pushed him to the outer limits and made him the glowing success he eventually became.

Of Kagwe, as he fondly called him, Rubia spoke in a matter-of-fact way. “If all lawyers were like Kagwe, citizens...would be law-abiding. Kagwe is an honest and conscientious lawyer.”

The finality with which the words were spoken felt like an auctioneer’s hammer.

Why did he fall out with Daniel arap Moi even after serving in his Cabinet?

“I believe he chose me a minister because I merited the office,” he said.

“My parting with Moi was a patriotic cris de coeur. Protest voice was needed.”

With Kenneth Matiba, Rubia was hounded in jail in 1990. He had criticised the excesses of the regime.

He came to accept his fate in prison. In the adjoining room, Matiba protested bitterly.

Rubia said Matiba could not fathom why Moi would humiliate him, having sacrificed so much for him.

“Brother Matiba, being bitter is pointless. Can’t you see Moi’s is a crumbling regime?” he would remind him countless times.

Was he the father of the second liberation?

“In the struggle to dislodge Moi from power, many fathers and mothers paid the full price. The approximate truth is that I was one among them,” he said.

After his stint in jail, Rubia took a less active public profile. He now had time for family, his Anglican Church, friends, projects and business.

“I was an old man and needed to ruminate about my service to Kenyans. I didn’t want to compete with my children for public appointments. My time was past,” he said.

Corruption hurt him. He wondered how patriotism and corruption could be spoken of in the same sentence.

As the first African mayor of Nairobi, Rubia ensured citizens got value for their money. As a Cabinet minister, he extolled the virtues of public service.

He reminded me that in his public service, he did not appropriate for himself anything that belonged to the public and he was willing to be contradicted!

There is an old tale about life and death.

Life asked death: “why do people love me but hate you?” Death responded: “Because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth.”

It’s obvious Charles Rubia has finally met his painful truth. But he’s done so with this major difference; as a man of candour! Fare thee well, father of Kenya’s second liberation!

The writer is the author of Dr Fackson Kagwe’s biography, ‘A Lawyer For Our Times’