Kenyan President Daniel Moi arrives at Nyayo National Stadium for Moi
Day celebrations on October 10, 2001. As for whose counsel Moi acted on,
it all depended on who spoke to him last. PHOTO | PEDRO UGARTE | AFP
Recently, one of the Assignment Editors at the Nation Media
Group requested me to do a story on who were retired President Daniel
arap Moi’s most trusted aides.
Leafing through my
yellowing notebooks and scratching a greying head to recall memories of
conversations unrecorded, I concluded Moi had none. I share some
recollections that made me arrive at this conclusion.
Sometimes
in the year 2002 I happened to be at the home of a former Cabinet
minister, Dr Munyua Waiyaki, when a former permanent secretary in
President Moi’s government, Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat, came over. The
two were friends and had a lot in common.
At the time the duo, who were long into retirement, had been recalled to serve in a parliamentary salaries review committee.
That was before a greedy breed of parliamentarians arrived and decided to henceforth determine what they would be paid mpende msipende (like it or not)!
Dr
Waiyaki and Ambassador Kiplagat had a lot in shared memories, having
served in the Foreign Affairs ministry, one as minister and the other as
PS, though at different times.
THE TINY PPROBLEM
In the
course of the conversation that day, Dr Waiyaki commented that
Ambassador Kiplagat was lucky to have been one of the few in whom
President Moi had full trust.
The latter laughed and
said: “As a matter of fact, I closely worked for and with Moi. But I can
tell you he never had full trust in anybody. Believe me, nobody at
all!”
He went on to elaborate: “You were only Moi’s
trusted confidant when seated with him. The moment you stepped out, your
worst adversary would be seated exactly where you were and undoing
whatever it is you had discussed and agreed with the President.”
As for whose counsel Moi acted on, Ambassador Kiplagat told us, it all depended on who spoke to him last.
He
gave us his own example. When he was PS, Foreign Affairs, Moi appointed
him special envoy to mediate between warring factions in Mozambique —
Frelimo and Renamo.
In the course of his work, the
Kenyan diplomat discovered one of the biggest obstacles to peace in
Mozambique was interference by rogue British billionaire Tiny Rowland,
who was funding one of the factions to secure protection for his crooked
business interests in the southern African country.
The tricky thing for Ambassador Kiplagat was that Tiny Rowland was also a great friend of Moi.
He had substantial investments in Kenya, whose caretaker was another of Moi’s confidants, Mark arap Too.
DROPPED AS PS
Realising
he couldn’t get very far with the Mozambique assignment as long as Tiny
Rowland had leverage with Moi, Ambassador Kiplagat gathered courage and
told the President he wished to be relieved of the job in Maputo as he
wasn’t making much headway.
Moi would hear none of it:
“How can you quit when all the reports I have been getting are that you
are doing a fantastic job down there? I won’t allow that.”
Believing
the President to mean what he said, Ambassador Kiplagat poured out his
heart and told Moi how Tiny Rowland and Mark Too were frustrating his
efforts to broker peace in Mozambique.
He recalled Moi
looking at him in the eye and saying: “Forget about that crook called
Tiny Rowland. Also Mark Too. What do they know about diplomacy? Just
ignore them and do the work I gave you to do!”
Ambassador Kiplagat left Moi’s office satisfied he had full trust of the boss.
But he immediately smelt a rat when on his way out he met with Mark Too who greeted him with a mischievous smile.
“I there and then suspected foul play and went back to my office expecting the worst”, Ambassador Kiplagat recalled.
Sure
enough, three days later he learnt on radio that he had been dropped as
PS and appointed chairman of some obscure State corporation.
KAMOTHO'S POSITION
Moi-era Cabinet minister Joseph Kamotho also told me of his experience.
When
he and former Vice President George Saitoti were about to quit Kanu in
2002, Moi invited him for dinner at his private city residence to
persuade him not to go.
“Why follow that man Saitoti?” Moi had asked Kamotho. “You are my trusted man, but he isn’t!”
Kamotho
replied in surprise: “But Saitoti has been your long serving and loyal
deputy?” To which Moi replied: “Yes, he has been my VP but that isn’t to
say I trust him! Look, how can I trust a person who has never allowed
us to know his origins?
Again, I hear he has so much money which nobody knows where it came from? How can you trust such a person?”
Kamotho
told me he left Moi’s residence puzzled that he had retained a deputy
he didn’t trust for 12 years yet the Constitution those days allowed the
President to fire his VP on a whim!
Kamotho had
another recollection. When he was elected Kanu secretary-general, Moi
allowed him to retain his position as Murang’a Kanu branch chairman as
well, which wasn’t allowed by the party constitution.
Then,
out of the blues, Kanu national chairman Peter Oloo Aringo demanded
that Kamotho relinquish one of the party positions he held.
MOI'S WISH
Suspecting that his colleague couldn’t do so without clearance from high up, Kamotho sought audience with Moi on the matter.
The
President dismissed Aringo as a loud mouth acting on his own. “That man
talks too much. I will tell him to do his work and leave you alone to
do yours,” Moi assured Kamotho.
But Aringo didn’t stop.
A confused Kamotho sought to know what was going on from then-powerful
PS in the office of the President, Hezekiah Oyugi.
The
latter was frank with him: “Mr Kamotho, if I were you, I would go to
the President and tell him I voluntarily want to resign as Murang’a Kanu
branch chairman. That is the President’s wish but he won’t tell you. He
is using Aringo to pass the message across.” Kamotho did as advised and
Moi was a happy man.
In those days, Oyugi was the most
trusted Moi confidant — to the extent he was allowed to set up an
Intelligence gathering network to work parallel to the official spy
agency.
When he went to consult with Moi, Oyugi would
keep everybody else, including his immediate boss, the Head of the Civil
Service, waiting at the reception for hours on end.
But the very moment Moi was done with him, Oyugi never knew what hit him.
He was arrested and locked up for two weeks in connection with the mysterious murder of Cabinet minister Robert Ouko.
EARLY RETIREMENT
When set free, he caught a mysterious disease and died in a London hospital.
Moi somehow forgot to send a message of condolence, let alone attend Oyugi’s funeral!
Long-serving
Controller of State House in Moi’s government, Abraham Kiptanui, was
another one to know you were only useful to the President when seated
with him, but immediately out of sight, you were out of mind, and bure
kabisa! - as Mwai Kibaki would crudely put it.
When he
served him, Moi deliberately let Kiptanui believe he was his most
trusted person and used him to spy on other assumed confidants.
Then
one day Kiptanui arrived at his office in Nairobi State House to be
told the President had left for Nakuru, of which he had no prior
knowledge, yet he was a trusted keeper of the President’s diary!
A few minutes later, he got a call that he should see the Head of the Civil Service at Harambee House.
There, he was handed a letter that stated: “ … It has been decided that you take an early retirement in the public interest …”
Nobody bothered to tell Kiptanui “where” it was decided, by “whom” and to serve which “public interest”!
Years
later after the former State House official had moved on, he made a
joke to a former colleague: “You know my friend, my biggest mistake when
Controller of State House was to assume I worked for an institution
called State House and the government. When fired, I discovered I had
been working for a company called Moi Incorporated!”
BIWOTT TURNED AWAY
Total trust? Never! Not even self-declared “Total man” Nicholas Biwott had total trust of his boss Moi.
I came to know it during the burial of Mama Lena Moi at Kabarak, which I attended as a journalist.
At
the end of the service at Kabarak University grounds, an announcement
was made that only President Kibaki, Moi family, and invited guests
should proceed to the Moi family compound for interment of the body.
A Nation
photographer and I strategically positioned ourselves at the side gate
to see who would or wouldn’t be allowed to enter the family compound.
We witnessed Biwott and a Moi-era nominated MP from the Coast, Rashid Sajjad, turned away.
Back
in Nairobi, I sought appointment with a retired highly-placed official
and great friend of Biwott to ask him why, of all people, “Total Man”
couldn’t be allowed to enter Moi’s family compound.
He
laughed and told me that Moi and Biwott had long parted ways but decided
to play it cool. As you expect, I asked how that came about.
The
retired official gave me a long story. In the “leaner days” when Moi’s
and Biwott’s bank accounts were often in the red, he told me, Biwott
tirelessly worked hard to make sure it would never be the same again for
the two, and for their generations, born and unborn.
KANYOTU FIRED
But
as money rained in torrents, and their children matured to demand a
piece of the action, the two old buddies developed mistrust for each
other, with accusations and counter-accusations on who had “stolen” from
the other.
My contact gave me credible details, but,
in the absence of documented evidence, I can’t mention them here without
getting my employer into unwarranted legal problems.
Not even Moi’s heads of Intelligence were beyond suspicion by the boss.
When
Mwai Kibaki abruptly resigned from government to join the opposition in
December 1991, the President hit the roof that Intelligence didn’t know
of Kibaki’s plans in advance.
He couldn’t believe it and thought Intelligence head James Kanyotu was working with Kibaki.
He quietly fired the latter despite having trusted him on many delicate assignments for 14 years.
The same fate nearly fell on Moi’s third and last Intelligence head, Wilson Boinnet.
When
President Moi bulldozed Uhuru Kenyatta as Kanu presidential candidate
in 2002 election, the Intelligence head frankly told him indications on
the ground were that Kanu would lose the election.
POLITICAL UNIVERSE
Moi
chose to be in denial, instead suspecting the Intelligence head was
working with Vice President Saitoti who, until Uhuru Kenyatta came on
the scene, was the presumed Kanu presidential candidate.
To escape Moi’s wrath, Boinnet turned to showing Moi raw Intelligence reports received from the field.
I
personally got to know Moi didn’t fully trust anybody during an
encounter with him at State House, a story I have previously told in
this column.
What I left out in the story is that as
the President saw us off, he pulled aside politician Stanley Githunguri
and spoke to him in whispers.
On our way back to town, the latter told me what the whisper from the President was about.
The
President wanted to know whether the rival politician to Githunguri,
Njenga Karume, was able to deliver the Kiambu vote to Kanu as promised.
It
happened that Karume, on persuasion by Moi, had defected from the
opposition to join Kanu and had promised to deliver the Kiambu vote if
supported with resources, which Moi gave him in plenty.
But here was Moi doubting Karume and cross-checking with his arch-political rival whether he was cheating on him.
That was Moi’s political universe. Nobody was beyond suspicion, not even Caesar’s wife!
kamngotho@yahoo.com
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